
SKETCHES 



OF 



DISTINGUISHED 



AMERICAN AUTHORS, 



REPKBSKXTEl) I\ 



DARLEY'S NEW NATIONAL PICTURE, 



KNTITI.KD 



WASHINGTON IRVING 



AND HIS LITERARY FRIENDS. 



j^rr & Tj isr isr ^sr & X ID 



V 



X E W YORK : 

IKVIN"(; PUBLISHINC COMPAN'Y, 

1863. 



PUBLISHERS' CARD. 



Id announcing the final completion of the " Irving Picturf.," the publishers have the pleasure 
of stating that it has proved a great success, not only as regards design and execution, but in a 
historical and literary vew, presenting, as it does, literal and characteristic portraits of distin- 
guished American Authors, grouped in the most agreeable and effl'ctive manner. 

The Picture represents an interior view of Irving's Library at Sunnyside. In the centre of 
a group of fifteen American Literary Celebrities is seated the amiable and unas.suming Irving. 
Around this genial sun the artist has traced the orbits of our brilliant literary syste.n, appa- 
rently preserving th,.se distances and positions which are suggestive of the individual co-relation 
borne by each in his sphere. Upon the right and left, and in Irving's immediate vicinity, are 
Prescott, Cooper, Bancroft, Longfellow, and in a wider circle revolve Emer.son, Kennedy, Bryant, 
Paulding, Willis, Hawthorne, Halleck, Holmes, Simms, and Tuckerman. the whole group forming I 
a constellation, of whiqli every American should be justly proud, I 

The publishers have had the abo^-e work in process of execution during the past three years j 
(the time required to engrave it properly). In its production no expense has been spared. It 
is engraved on steel, in the highest style of the art, known as mixed line and stipple, by Thos. 
Oldham Barlow, of London, from the original and spirited design by K. 0. V. Darley, the great 
American artist. 



The large Painting, four by six feet, now on exhibition 



and is pronounced by connoisseurs a truly superb and finished work, charm 



, was reproduced in oil by C. Schussele 



mg in it.s tone and 



The Engraving measures 21 1,- inches by 31 inches, on heavy plate paper, 31 inches by 43 
inches. It will be issued to .subscribers mJy, in order of their subscription. A limi.ed number 
of the higher grade proofs will be taken. ' 



Grades and Prices. 

Arttst's Proofs 

$50 

Proof brfore Lhttbrs 

l.MDu Proofs 

15 

Prints 

10 

Subscription books now open, and Pictures on exhibition, at the Derby Galleries Institute of 
Art, 625 Broadway. 

All commimications should be addressed to 

IRVING PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

JVb. 683 HJROJlDWAY. 



L 



SKETCHES 



DISTINGUISHED 



AMERICAN AUTHORS, 



REPRESENTED IN 



-^/DAKLEY'S NEW NATIONAL PICTURE, 



ENTITLED 



WASHINGTON IRVING 

AND HIS LITERARY FRIENDS, 



NEW YORK: 

IRVING PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

II 

1863. 



\ 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Introductory 3 

Washington Irving 5 

J. Fenimore Cooper 21 

William H. Prescott 28 

George Bancroft 31 

James K. Paulding 34 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 36 

John P. Kennedy • 39 

William CuUen Bryant 41 

Henry William Longfellow 44 

Fitz Green Halleck 46 

Nathaniel Hawthorne , 47 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 50 

Nathaniel Parker Willis 51 

William Gilmore Simms 53 

Henry T. Tuckerman 56 



/ 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHOHS. 



WASHINGTON IRVING, 



A\ American author, born in New York, April 3, 1783, died at his residence, 
Sunnyside, near Tarry town, N. Y., November 28, 1859. He was the youngest 
son of William Irving, a descendant of the Erwyns, or Irvines, of Orkney, 
who flourished there in the fifteenth century. His mother was an English 
woman. At the time of his birth, his parents had resided in America about 
twenty years. Irving had an ordinary school education, which terminated in 
his sixteenth year. His elder brothers had occupied themselves with literary 
pursuits, and his family proclivity soon betrayed itself in the youth. He pro- 
cured a number of the old English authors, and read with delight the poems of 
Chaucer and Spenser. The gay humor of the one, and the rich imagination of 
the other, served to cultivate the faculties, from whose combination, in his own 
works, Irving was destined to derive so much fame. Other habits and pursuits 
in his early years tended strongly to mould his character and tastes. The 
scenes amid which he parsed his boyhood were peculiar; they exerted a power- 
ful influence upon subjects of his genius, and the choice of subjects for his 
writings afterward. New York was then a mere village in comparison to its 
present size ; it scarcely contained fifty thousand souls, and the great ma- 
jority of the inhabitants lived below Cortlandt street and Maiden lano. The 
streets, studded everywhere with Lombardy poplars, had extended but a short 
distance above the Park ; and the rear of the City Hall was built of red stone, 
from the slight probability of its attracting much attention from the scattered 
inhabitants residing above Chambers street. Neither the appearance of the 
town nor its social character had lost the peculiarities of its origin. Its habi- 
tudes and manners were quaint and picturesque ; many curious personages of 
local celebrity gave attraction to the population ; and the strong Dutch infusion 
impressed upon the writer a distinct individuality, which has now, in a large 
measure, disappeared. In this old New York, full of character, oddity, and 
interest, passed the boyhood of Washington Irving. In the pleasant "Author's 
Account of Himself," prefixed to the " Sketch-Book," he presents an entertain- 
ing picture of his school days, embracing many particulars which are valuable 
aids to the biographer. The paper bears every mark of actual transcript of the 
habits of his youth, and of the influences which operated on the development 
of his character. From his early days, he declares, he was always fmd of visit- 
ing new scenes, and observing strange characters and manners. Even when a 
mere child, he made tours of discovery into the foreign jxirts and unknown 
regions of his native city, to the frequent alarm of his parents and the emolu- 
ment of the town-crier. As he grew up into boyhood, these travels were 
f xtended further. His holiday afternoons were spent in rambles itbout the sur- 
rounding country, by which means he soon grew perfectly familiar with every 



^p 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

spot famous in history or fable, where a murder or a robbery had lieen com- 
mitted, or a ghost encountered. On visits to the neighboring villages he added 
to his stock of knowledge by noting their habits and customs, and conversing 
with their sages and great men. This rambling propensity, so far from decreas- 
ing, strengthened as he advanced in )"ears. Books of voyages and travels 
became his passion, and for their fascinating pages he avoided the duller pur- 
suits of the school-room. He would wander wistfully about the pier-heads of 
his native town, and watch the white sails of departing ships, longing to float 
aWay in them to the ends of the earth. The Strait of Hellgate, he declares in 
the introduction to the ' ' Money Diggers, ' ' was a place of great awe and peril- 
ous enterprise to him in his boyhood, when he was " much of a navigator on 
those small seas;" and more than once, in holiday voyages, ran the risk of 
shipwreck and drowning. The curious student of the peculiarities of Irving's 
genius will not fail to discover in the.se early habitudes and tastes the germ of 
many of his subsequent works. They doubtless occasioned in him a great fond- 
ness for the past of his native place, and stored his memory with local colors 
and incidents, which were afterward to appear in the "Knickerbocker" his- 
tory. Leaving school at the age of sixteen, he commenced the study of law. 
But the inclinations of the youth were all in the direction of a literary life. In 
1802, at the age of nineteen, he began his career by writing for the " Morning 
Chronicle" newspaper, then edited by his brother, Dr. Peter Irving, a series oi 
papers upon the theatres, manners, and local events of the town, over the sig. 
nature of "Jonathan Oldstyle." A pamphlet edition of these was published 
in 1824, without sanction of the author, who seems to have regarded them as 
unworthy of collection. In 1804, the symptoms of a pulmonary affection hav- 
ing developed themselves, Irving sought relief in a .sea voyage and a visit to 
the summer climate of the south of Europe. To this he was doubtless impelled 
in a large degree by that inborn love for travel which characterized him. We 
have his own statement, that further reading and thinking only increased his 
early passion. No one could admire more than himself, he said, the magnificence 
of American scenery, its great forests, rivers, waterfalls, and lakes ; but Europe 
contained even more. He burned to visit the shores of the old world, to see its 
great personages, and explore the accumulated beauties and treasures of the Past. 
Sailing from New York in May, he duly reached Bordeaux, traveling thence 
through the south of France,'and by Nice, to Genoa. Here, in the picturesque old 
city of palaces, he passed two months. He then sailed to Messina, made the tour of 
Sicily, and crossed over to Naples. From Naples, in the spring of 1805, he 
proceeded to Rome, where he made a brief sojourn and contracted an intimate 
friendship for Washington Allston. In a paper containing many interesting 
reminiscences of his friend, originally contributed to Duyckinck's " Cyclopas- 
dia of American Literatui'c, " and written in his most delightful style, he de- 
clares that his intimacy with Allston " came near changing his whole course of 
life." After one of the rambles of the friends through the beautiful scenery 
around the city, they returned at sunset, when the landscape reposed in its 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAX AUTHORS. 7 

inost encl.a„ting beauty. As he gazed upoa the scene, it suddenly occurred to 
Imng that to hve m Italy, and become a punter, would be far more deli<.htful 
han to return to New York and practice law. He had taken lessons inVraw- 
ng.n America, had a decided fondness for it, and his friends said, an equal 
talent. Allston caught at the suggestion with ardor, and for three day.s the 
future author was possessed by the determination to become a painter The 

encfof rT"; "" """■ ""'"' "^' ''''' "^^^' '^'^"^^'-^ f™- the influ- 
ence of the lovely evenmgand his romantic friendship, was given up ; and the 

friends soon parted-Allston to pursue his studies and his dreams, irvin^ to 
cont,„,ehis travels. Passing through Switzerland, he arrived at Paris" in 
w nc.h gay cap.tal he resided several months. Finally. England, the chief ob- 
ject of his youthful love and curiosity, drew him irresistibly toward her shores 
He proceeded to London by the roundabout route of Flanders and HolhuKl 
having thus traversed, in about eighteen months, many of the fairest and mosi 
uggestive scenes of the old world. The opportunity of collecting materia 

" of th 1 "'* '""^ ""''''''''■ ^^^^^•^^•^'^■■^ "- ^i-'^ -«' o'-rvan 

eje of the young American had been open to the peculiarities of life and cha. 

acter whK.h passed before him. Alive to the passionate romance of Italy and 

to the sentiment and humor of France and the Ehine land, he stored in l"s 

vivid and tenacious memory the details of many wild legends and im, osin' 

Eg and, he returned to New York in March, 1803, and, going back to his law 
s udxes_, was admitted, in due course, to the bar. But he never practiced thi 
P ofe.sion. t seems to have po.s.sessed no attraction for the young man 
thrT^ar" /"■' turned toward literature. The prospect beLe an 
authoi at that period was, however, utterly discouraging. Few persons 
read an American book," unless it treated of politics or some practical sub! 
ject Foi_ these the young writer had no genius. If he wrote at all he must 
write in his own way, and on the topics which interested his fancy. To such 
work he accordingly proceeded. With James K. Pauldmg, and his eWe^ 
broher ^Mlhain who married Paulding's sister, he projected a seri. 1 p b 
hcation intended to satirize the ways of the hour in New York-'- To simply 
mstruct the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age ' ' 

undertaL't't"' ^H'^'" ''''''' *'*^ '''' '"""''^ ^""^^' "-^' therefore: we 
tl eW ." -f clence." The plan was carried out in " Salmagund , or 

the Wlnnewhems and Opinions of Launcelot Longstaff, Esq., and Others" which 
aj^ared in small 18mo. numbers, from time to time, under the au;pi:es of 
DaMd Longworth, an eccentric bookseller, whose shop was variously denomi- 

SSnarv ''T' ' T\ " ''f ^^P^^'"^ ^^"->'" -^ the " Sentimental Epicure's 
Ordinary The first number of the serial was published January 24 1807 
and created a great sensation. The town hailed with delight the lih humor' 
the keen wit and thepersonal squibs of the publication It was continued durin^: 
a year, and filled twenty numbers, to which the three authors regularly eon rf- 



8 SKKTCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

butecl. No distinct announcement has been made of the part borne by each of 
the writers ; but the poetical epistles are said to have been written by William 
Irving, and the prose papers to have proceeded in about equal measure from 
his associates. Those by " Anthony Evergreen. Gent.," bear internal marks 
of the pen of Washington Irving, whose intention, it is said, was to have mar- 
ried Will Wizard to the eldest Miss Cockloft and to have embraced the oc- 
casion of describing a grand wadding at Cockloft Hall, the original of which 
mansion was the residence of Gouverneur Kemble, on the Passaic, whither 
Irving went frequently in his early days. The pleasant portrait of ",My Uncle 
John," is understood to have been the work of Paulding ; and from his pen 
also proceeded the original sketch of "Autumnal Eeflections," which 
was, however, extended and wrought out by Irving. Launcelot Longstaff, 
Esq., whose portrait adorns the title-page of the original edition, is thought to 
have been Dennie, an author of the period. " Salmagundi " became a work of 
more character and importance than its writers probably anticipated. Designed 
for the amusement of an idle hour, and to raise a little laughter at local follies, 
it finally became a great favorite throughout the whole country, and formed in 
New York a distinct school of art and humor. The work, indeed, possesses 
great variety of character and incident. The humor and pathos are delicate and 
natural ; the local pleasantries and gossip are recorded with a sjiirit unsurpass- 
ed since the days of Addison. It would be difficult to find in the subsequent 
works of the authors any better comedy than the Military Muster, or Wil- 
Wizard's visit to the " modern ball ;" and the sketch of the Cockloft family 
and mansion is as fine as anything in the "Sketch-Book." "Blackwood's 
Magazine" declared the work "quite superior to anything of the kind which 
this age has produced ;" and it continues to occupy a prominent position among 
the most characteristic and animated productions of its writers. A little less 
than two years after the termination of the serial, appeared "A History 
of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch 
Dynasty, &c., by Diedrick Knickerbocker." It was commenced by Wash- 
ington Irving, in company with his brother, Peter Irving ; the design 
of the writers having been to parody a handbook which had just appeared, 
with the title, " A Picture of New York." This publication contained a 
historical account of the city, and the brothers aimed at a burlesque nar- 
rative of the same events. Dr. Peter Irving sailed soon afterward for 
Europe, and thus the work remained solely in the hands of Washington 
Irving. Finding the capabilities of the subject greater than he had 
supposed, he elaborated it with care, and finally produced a work in two vol- 
umes. To attract attention to the publication, advertisements were inserted in 
the "Evening Post," calling for information of a " small elderly gentleman, 
dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker," who 
had disappeared from his lodgings at the Columbian hotel in Mulberry street ; 
then a statement that the old gentleman had left "a very curious kind of a 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 9 

written book in his room," which, unless he returned, would be disposed of to 
discharge his bill at the tavern ; finally the work was duly announced. It at- 
tracted immediate attention, and was by many persons at first supposed to be a 
veracious histoi\' of New York. A venerable clergyman, it is said, commenced 
it in good faith, and only discovered his mistake when the broad humor and 
extravagance of the narrative betrayed it. A still more amusing fact is the 
citation of the work by Goller, a German editor of Thucydides, in illustration 
of a historical passage, in the words : Addo locum Wimhin{jtoms Irvingii Hist. Noi-i 
Eboraci, lib. vii. g. cap. 5. With every lover of genuine humor the book became 
an early favorite ; but some of the descendants of the Dutch resented it, as an 
attempt to ridicule their ancestors. In an address before the New York Histori- 
cal Society, it was gravely held up to public reprehension, as a most unjustifi- 
able burlesque of the past of the commonwealth. To the last revised edition of 
the work Irving prefixed an "Apology," in which he defends himself plea- 
santly against tlicse criticisms. His design, he declares, had a bearing wide 
from the sober aim of history. It was to embody the traditions of New York 
in an amusing form ; to illustrate its local humors, customs, and peculiarities ; 
and to clothe home scenes, places, and familiar names with those imaginative 
and whimsical associations so seldom met with in America. He declares that 
he has made the old Dutch times and manners popular, and humorously all 
ludes to the innumerable Knickerbocker hotels, steamboats, icecarts, and other 
appropriations of the name, asserting tliat the general good feeling and hilarity 
of the people have been promoted by his work, which has formed " a convivial 
currency, linking our whole community together in good humor and good fel 
lowship ; the rallying point of home feeling ; the reasoning of civic festivities ; 
the staple of local tales and local pleasantries." The publication was scarcely 
known at the time in Europe ; but when the author had made his way to the 
English heart by the " Sketch Book," " Blackwood's Magazine " (July, 1820) 
and the " Quarterly Review" (March, 1825), spoke of it in terms of discriminat- 
ing praise. The magazine declared " that the matter of the book would preserve 
its character of value long after the lapse of time had blunted the edge of the 
personal allusions," and that Irving was " by far the greatest genius which had 
appeared upon the literary horizon of the New World." The review compared 
the st^le to that of Swift's "Tale of the Tub," and lamented tliat English 
readers were unable, from ignorance of the local allusions, to enjoy "a treat 
indeed." Edv/ard Everett, in the " North American Review," declared it "a 
book of unwearying pleasantry, which, instead of flashing out, as English and 
American humor is wont, from time to time, with long and dull intervals, is 
kept with a true French vivacity from beginning to end." Though the en- 
tire justice of this last criticism may be questioned, the work is in Irving's best 
vein. The style is easy, polished, and full of a native and unlabored grace 
The humor varies from the broadly comic to the subtle and delicate. The de- 
scriptions of scenery and character are frequently serious and instinct with 



10 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

beauty ; but the work will be chiefly valued for its finished portraits of former 
manners, and of the old Dutch worthies around whose figures the author has 
thrown all the decorations of his affluent humor. For some years after the 
publication of the Knickerbocker history, Irving produced no new work. In 1810 
he wrote a biographical sketch of Thomas Campbell, for an edition of his works 
about to appear in Philadelphia. Tliis wasdone at the request of Archibald Camp- 
bell, a brother of the poet, who was residing at the time in New York. The 
sketch served afterwards to secure the friendship of Tliomas Campbell, in London. 
Irving had, meanwhile, engaged, with histwo brothers, in mercantile pursuits, a 
a silent partner. But his literary inclinations were as strong as before, and in 
1813 and '14 he edited the "Analectic Magazine," in Philadelphia, to which he 
contributed a series of elegant biographies of the Nava) Commanders of America. 
In 1814 he joined the staff of Gov. Tompkins as aid-de-camp and Military 
Secretary, with the title of Colonel. On the termination of the war, he was 
again seized by his old passion for travel, and sailed a second time for Europe. 
He probably intended his visit for a short one ; but he remained absent seven- 
teen years. The career which we are now about to follow, was on the soil of 
the old world, from which he wiis to return to his native land crowned with 
great and deserved honors. The anonymous satirist of "Salmagundi" and 
"Knickerbocker " was to become the author of the '" Sketch Book " and the 
"History of Columbus;" the unknown essayist to be hailed as the first and 
most delightful humorist of the age. In London he made the acquaintance of 
many persons of congenial tastes, among whom were the poets Procter and 
Campbell. Leslie, the distinguished artist, whom Irving had probably known in 
Philadelphia, was also here. Tliey wandered about London in company, 
observing odd characters, and anxiously collecting materials, the one for his 
books, the other for his pictures. At this period Irving probably mingled with 
the singular characters who form the groundwork of some of the sketches of 
the " Tales of a Traveler," and, on his numerous excursions, in company with 
Leslie, gathered the sunny details and coloring of the English portion of the 
" Sketch Book." These excursions extended to Stratford-on-Avon, and into the 
mountains of Wales. From his wayside adventures, and the genial scenes 
through which he passed, Irving returned to London, pervaded with the in- 
fluences of the rural life of England. In due time, his experiences were to 
prove of value. In 1819 he visited Edinburgh and the Highlands of Scotland; 
and on his return paid a visit to Sir Walter (then Mr.) Scott. Campbell's letter 
of introduction paved the way, and on a fine August morning he drove up to 
Abbotsford. Scott had read with admiration a copy of " Knickerbocker," sent 
him by Mr. Henry Brevoort, from New York, and welcomed his visitor " with 
delight," says Lockhart. He was at breakfast, but sallied forth surrounded by 
dogs and children, greeting Irving cordially before he had issued from his 
chaise. He wrote to a friend soon afterwards : ' ' When you see Tom Campbell, 
tell him, with my best love, that I have to thank him for making me known to 
Mr. AVashington Irving, who is one of the best and pleasantest acquaintances I 



SKETCHKS OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 



Jl 



have made this many a day. ' ' To Mr. Brevoort he wrote that, " Knickerbocker' ' 
reminded him both of Swift and Sterne, and made his sides " absolutely sore 
with laughter. ' ' Thus passed in travel , in rural wanderings, and in pleasant social 
intercourse, the first year or two of Irving's stay in England. But a cloud was 
approaching. Soon after his visit to Scott, the house with which he was con- 
nected in New York yielded to the commercial revulsion after the war, and 
failed. The whole of Irving's property was invested in the business, and the 
result reduced him suddenly to poverty. He does not seem, however, to be 
greatly cast down. Thrown thus on his own resources for support, he returned to 
literature. His journeys and explorations in England naturally suggested 
themselves, and the plan of the "Sketch Book" was the result. All the 
papers, with two exceptions, were written in England, and sent, " piece-meal " 
to New York, where they were published (1818) in the form of octavo pam- 
phlets. When the first volume had appeared in this form, it attracted the atten- 
tion of William Jerdan, editor of the London "Literary Gazette," who 
inserted some of the numbers in his periodical, with high commendation. 
Soon afterward, heai'ing that a London publisher was about to print 
the work without his sanction, Irving offered it to Murray, from 
whom he had received many friendly attentions. The result was dis- 
heartening. Murray "entertained the most unfeigned respect for the wri- 
ter's talents," but politely declined publishing the volume, with a courteously 
worded but unmistakable intimation that it would not remunerate him for the 
trouble and expense. Meeting with such ill success in London, Irving determined 
to attempt Edinburgh, and fixed upon Const ible. 'Knowing Scott's relations with 
that publisher, and convinced of his friendly regard for himself, he sent the 
printed numbei's of the " Sketch Book " to Abbotsford, accompanied by a note, 
in which he explained his condition. A reverse, he said, had taken place on his 
fortunes since the visit to Abbotsford, and he was now obliged to depend on 
literature for support. He requested Scott to look at the pamphlets, and, if he 
thought them worthy of European republication, to ascertain if Constable would 
bring them out in a volume. Scott needed no second petition from a brother 
author in misfortune. Hi replied promptly, and in his own generous style, 
that nothing would give him more pleasure than to do Irving a service. He 
had looked at the numbers of the "Sketch Book," he said, and thought them 
"positively beautiful." He would use every means to I'ecommend them to 
Constable. Meanwhile, would Irving accept the editorial control of a new 
periodical about to be commenced at Edinburgh, with a salary of £500 a year, 
and prospects of further advantages. Th 3 publication might have a political 
bearing which would not suit Irving, but he could risk the offor, knowing "no 
man so well qualified for this important task, and because it will bring you to 
Eiliuburgh." The offer, and the manner of making it, were full of the kindness 
and delicacy of Scott's heart. Irving's reply was equally characteristic of him- 
f, and presents so suggestive a picture of his literary character and habits 
it is worthy of more than a passing notice. Scott's "genial sunshine " of 



12 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

the heart, he declared, warmed everything upon which it fell. Tlie editorial 
proposal surprised and flattered him ; hut hoth his political opinions and his 
character debarred him from accepting the position. The course of his life had 
been " desultory ;" he was unfitted for any periodically recurring task, and 
stipulated labor of mind or body. "I have no command of my talents such as 
they are, and have to watch the varyings of my mind as I would those of a 
weathercock. Practice and training may bring me more into rule ; but at pre- 
sent I am as useless for regular service as one of my own country Indians, or a 
Don Cossack. I must keep on, therefore, pretty much as I have begun ; writ- 
ing when I can, not when I would. I shall occasionally shift my residence, and 
write whatever is suggested by objects before me, or Avhatever rises in my ima- 
gination, and hope to write better and more copiously by and by. I am playing 
the egotist, but I know no better way of answering your proposal than by 
showing what a good-for-nothing kind of being I am. Should Mr. Constable 
feel inclined to make a bargain for the wares I have on hand, he will encourage 
me to further enterprise ; and it will be something like trading with a gypsy 
for the fruits of his prowlings, who may at one time have nothing but a 
wooden bowl to "offer, and at another time a silver tankard." Such was the mo- 
dest and manly reply of the future author of many a volume which proved a 
"periodically recurring task and stipulated labor." Scott's reply expressed 
regret, but the "most encouraging confidence of the success " of the " Sketch 
Book republished." " Whatever my experience can command," he wrote, "is 
most heartily at your command. '■- '■' « * 

I am sure you have only to be known to the British public to be admired by 
them. If you ever see a witty but rather local publication called ' Blackwood's 
Edinburgh Magazine,' you will find some notice of your works in the last num- 
ber ; the author is a friend of mine to Avhoni I have introduced you in your 
literary capacity. His name is Lockhart, a young man of very considerable 
talents, and who will soon be intimately connected with my family. M"y 
faithful friend Knickerbocker is to be next examined and illustrated. * * 
I promise myself great pleasure on once again shaking j-ou by the hand." The 
negotiation with Constable ended in nothing, and the first volume of the 
"Sketch Book " was put in press in London, at Irving's expense, in February, 
1820. Miller, the publisher, failed, and the equanimity of the author was 
sorely tried. Scott arrived at the crisis in London, and, "more propitious than 
Hercules, put his own shoulder to the wheel." A few words to Murray arranged 
everything. He bought the copyright for £200, which was afterwards 
increased, with the success of the work to £400. The train of incidents which 
thus connect the names of Walter Scott and Washington Irving will be regarded 
with enduring interest by every true lover of literature. The affectionate 
friendship which commenced at Abbotsford was only dissolved by the death of 
Scott. The tears which came to the eyes of the survivor, as he spoke of their 
last interview, were the silent witnesses of what he had lost. The "Sketch 
Book," though criticized coolly by the "North American Review," was warmly 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 13 

welcomed in England. Lockhart had already cammendad in "Blackwood's 
Magazine," (Feb. 1820,) an English edition, and declared that "nothing 
had been written for a long time for which it would be more safe to pro- 
mise great and eager acceptance." liOrd Jeffrey said of the work, in the " Edin- 
burgh Review," (Aug. 1820) : " It is the work of an American entirely bred 
and trained in that country, originally published within its territory, or, 
as we understand, very extensively circulated, and very much admired 
among its natives." The " rem irkible thing," said the reviewer, was 
that the book should be "written throughout with the greatest care and 
accuracy, and worked up to a degree of purity and beauty of diction, on the 
model of the most elegant and polished of our native writers." The legend of 
"Kip Van Winkle" was quoted as a specimen of the " Hesperian essayist," who 
possessed, said the critic, "exquisite powers of pathos and description." Black- 
wood again, in 1825, said : "The 'Sketch Book' is a timid, beautiful work, 
with a world of humor, so happy, so natural, so altogether unlike that of any 
other man, dead or alive, that we would rather have been the writer of it, fifty 
times over, than of everything else he has ever written." Thus cordially 
greeted by the two leading critical periodicals of great Britain, the work soon 
attracted notice. Its genial sketches of life and scenery became greatly popular 
with all classes of readers. The " Sketch Book " is indeed in the author's most 
characteristic vein. The subjects are chosen with great skill ; the style is pure 
and graceful, and the humor exceedingly sweet and natural. The legends of 
" Rip Van Winkle " and "Sleepy Hollow" are unsurpassed among the author's 
creations. The work diverges everywhere from the beaten track, and finds 
simple beauties by the wayside and in the cottage. In the preface, indeed, the 
writer compares himself to the artist, who, traveling through Europe, filled his 
portfolio with landscapes and old ruins, forgetting St. Paul's and the Bay of 
Naples, and having " not a single glacier or volcano in the whole collection." 
The choice of subjects added greatly to the charm of the book ; and the writer's 
delightful "Sunshine of the Breast" conciliated the affection of the reader. 
It continues to be the favorite work of Irving, in England and America, and 
wherever his books are read. From this time dates the author's active career 
of letters. The "Sketch Book" brought him honorable fame and fair profit. 
Soon afterward he projected a second work of a more extended character, upon a 
kindred theme. Spending the winter of 1820 in Paris, where he enjoyed the 
intimacy of the poet Moore, and mingled with the best English society, he com- 
menced "Bracebridge Hall," in the spring of 1821. Moore notices in his diary 
the "amazing rapidity" of Irving's composition. In ten days he wrote about 
one hundred and twenty pages. " Bracebridge Hall, or the Humorists," wsa pub- 
lished in 1822, Murray paying for the copyright, without seeing the MS., the sum 
of one thousand guineas. If written tliroughout with the rapidity intimated by 
Moore, the work must have been carefully revised. It was a deliberate venture 
by an author who had fame to lose ; and Irving was never a careless writer. 



14 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

The introduction contains an entertaining picture of tlie position of the author 
before the British public. His previous volumes, he said, had succeeded far 
beyond his expectations ; and their popularity was doubtless attributable to the 
surprise Europeans felt at finding that an American could express himself in 
"tolerable English." He had been looked upon as "Something new and 
strange in literature ; a kind of semi-savage, with a feather in his hand instead 
of one on his head ; and there was a curiosity to hear what such a being had to 
say about civilization." This novelty having been dissipated, his present work 
would be apt to suffer from the kind reception of the former ones ; the world 
being prone to criticise severely an author who has been 'overprai.se J. His 
design, he said, was shnply to paint the scenery and manners — those English 
peculiarities which he had dwelt upon, in his wanderings, with childlike 
interest and delight. He left politics to abler heads, and aimed only to keep 
mankind in good-humor. The conclusion of the preface very admirably sums 
up the life-philosophy of the author : "When I discover the world to be all 
that it has been represented by sneering cynics and whining poets, I will turn 
to and abuse it also ; in the meanwhile, worthy reader, I hope you will not 
think lightly of me because I cannot believe this to be so very bad a world as it 
is represented." The leading critics differed upon the merits of the work. The 
"North American Review" (July, 1822) declared it "quite equal to any- 
thing which the present age of English literature has produced in this 
department." "Blackwood's Magazine" (June, 1822) subjected it to a 
keen analysis. The author had been overpraised, said the critic, and 
the people had become weary of hearing " Aristides called the Just;" 
but the punishment had duly been inflicted. "Rumor and all her crew 
seemed lying in wait for the former object of their applause," intent upon 
dragging down their idol. The work was a falling off from the "Sketch 
Book," added the critic, but contained many beauties in spite of its 
imitations of Addison. The " Edinburgh Review" (Njv. 1822) commended it 
highly, but with 'great discrimination. The aiithor's " former level had been 
maintained in the work with marvelous precision " The charm lay in " the 
smgular sweetness of the composition," which at times was almost cloying. 
" The rhythm and melody of the sentences," wrote the reviewer, " are certainly 
excessive." The criticism was just. The work suffers from the care and elabo- 
ration expended upon its style. The characters are, however, full of humorous 
individuality ; and the sweet story of Annette Delarbre is touched with the 
airthor's finest skill. The book will rank among the bast pictures of old 
English rural life and ch iracter. Passing the winter of this year at Dresden, 
Irving returned to Paris in 1823, and in December, 1821, published the " Tales 
of a Traveler." For this work hs received from M irray before he saw the MS. , 
£1,500, and " might have had £2,000." The introduction contains as usual an 
entertaining account of the origin of the tales. The author is laid up by sick- 
ness in the German town ol Mentz. Having exhausted every means of enter- 
tainment at his inn, and even wearied of learning German, and repeating 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 15 

Ich liehe aftsr the rosy-lipped Katrini, the diughter of his landlorJ, he deter- 
mines to throw aside the booivs of others, and write one for his own amtisement. 
Rummaging his portfolio, and casting about in his memory for a traveler's 
floating recollections, he makes the " Tales of a Traveler," which he declares 
to be "strictly moral." "This may not be appai-ent at first, but the reader 
will be sure to find it out in the end." The " Adventure of a German Student," 
and the " Mysterious Picture" were vague recollections of anecdotes which he 
had heard ; and the "Adventure of the Young Painter " had been taken nearly 
entire from an authentic MS. As to the rest, "I am an old traveler," he 
writes, " I have read somewhat, heard and seen more, and dreamt more than 
all. My brain is filled, therefore, with all kinds of odds and ends." He could 
say of no particular tale, whether he had "read, heard, or dreamt it." The 
" Talcs of a Traveler " was truly the result of wandei-ing in many lauds. Italy 
furnished the wild tales of the banditti ; Holland, the humor of the bold 
dragoon ; London, Buckthorne, and the club of queer fellows ; and America, 
the legends of Kidd, Wolfert Webber, and Tom Walker. The work was se- 
verely criticised in both England and America, but the romantic tragedies, and 
richly humorous sketches remain favorites with the young and uncritical. 
The winter of 1825 was spent by the author in the South of France, 
and early in the ensuing j'car he proceeded to a new field of labor. 
Alexander H. Everett, United States Minister to Spain, at the suggestion of Mr. 
Rich, the American Consul at Madrid, commissioned Irving to translate the im- 
portant documents relating to Columbus just collected by]Navarrete, and about 
to be pu'jli-ih:! I with th3 title of " C'llezzlvi de In viij'es y descuhrimientos," &c. 
Instead of a translation, the result was a " History of the Life and Voyages 
of Christopher Columbus ;" and afterward, in consequence of the success of the 
first production, the " Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Colum- 
bus," The first, and principal work, was published by Murray, in 1828, and 
brought the author three thousand guineas, together with one of the fifty- 
guinea gold medals offered by George IV. for eminence in historical comjjosition. 
His history became immediately popular, and was warmly eulogized by the lead- 
ing critic-i. The "North American Review" (January, 1829,) declared it iry 
be " one of those works which are at the same time the delight of readers and 
the de.spair of critics." The "Edinburgh Review," (September, 1828), said: 
" It will supersede all former works on the same subject, and never itself be 
superseded." Prescott wrote : "The task has been executed in a manner which 
must secure to the historian a share in the imperishable renown of his subject ;" 
and added that the work was " the noblest monument to the memory 
of Columbus." (Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. ii. ,pp. 134, 509). The chief 
adverse criticism of the history rested upon its too great length. A tour in the 
south of Spain in this and the following year enabled the author to embody in 
a picturesque form many romantic incidents collected in the course of his histo- 
rical researches. This was done in a " Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada," 
for the copyright of which Murray paid £2,000 ; and again in " The Alhambi'a, 



10 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

or New Sketch Book." The first professes to be derived from the MS. of a cer- 
tain monkish historian, Fray Antonio Agapida. But the monk was soon dis- 
covered to be solely the creature of the author's imagination. The "Chroni- 
cle " was less popular than the author had expected, and resulted in a loss to the 
publisher. The " Alhambra " was partly written in the old Moorish palace, in 
which Irving spent three months, and aimed to present a picture of the " half 
Spanish, half Oriental " character of the original. The work was published in 
May, 1832, and dedicated to Wilkie, the artist. In 1835, appeared on the same 
subject, " Legends of the Conquest of Spain," and afterward (1819-'50) " Ma- 
homet and his Successors," which was derived in large measure from materials 
collected in Madrid. These works are written in an animated and poetical 
style, evidently arising from a deep interest in the romantic details of the 
Spanish and Moorish wars. In July, 1829, Irving returned to England, having 
received the appointment of Secretary of Legation to the American Embassy at 
London ; in 1831 the University of Oxford conferred on him {he degree of LL. D. 
When Mr. Van Buren succeeded Mr. McLane, he returned to America, arriving 
in New York, after seventeen years absence, May 21, 1832. His fame had long 
preceded him. A public dinner, at which Chancellor Kent presided, testified to 
the pride which his countrymen felt in his honorable renown. A native 
modesty, and aversion to display, alone prevented him from receiving ovations 
throughout the land, from B jston to New Orleans. Irving was now in his fifti- 
eth year, and might have been excused for resting after so many wanderings. 
But he did not return to America for repose. His active faculties craved new 
fields for exertion. Attracted by the wild life of the West, he accompanied 
Commissioner Ellsworth, in the summer of the same year, on his journey to 
remove the Indian tribes acro.ss the Mississippi. The result was ' ' A Tour on 
the Prairies," which appeared in the " Crayon Miscellany" in 1835. "Abbots- 
ford" and "Newstead Abbey" were afterward added to the " Miscellany," In 
the former of which he describes his visit to Scott in 1817. The subject of the 
adventurous life of the West continued to interest him ; and in the next year 
(1836) he published " Astoria," a picturesque account of the settlement of that 
name. Visits paid in his youth to the station of the Northwest Fur Company at 
Mjntreal had excited his imagination, and from the papers of the "adventurers 
by S3a and land, ' ' employed by John Jacob Astor, he derived all necessary infor 
m ition. The r.iport that Mr. Astor had paid him $5,000 to " take up the MS." 
was in 1851 contradicted by the author, who published the work at his own ex- 
panse, and received no more than his ordinary share .of the profits. "Astoria" 
was succeeded, in 1837, by the "Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U. S. A., in 
the Rjcky Mountains and the Far West," prepared from the MSS. of that tra- 
veler, who h.xd " strongly engrafted the trapper and hunter on the soldier." 
In 1839 Irving CDutributed for two years a series of papers to the " Knicker- 
backar Magazine," which had been commenced in 1833 by Charles Fenno Hoff- 
man. A number of these articles, with others _from the Eaglisli annuals 



SKETCHES OF AMERfCAN AUTHORS. 17 

and periodicals, were, in 1855, collected" in a volume under the title of 
" Wolfert's Rjost," another name for the residence of the author. The lead- 
ing periodicals of America and England embraced the occasion to pay tributes 
full of respect and regard to Irving. In 1811 he published a life of Marga- 
ret Miller Davidson, to accompany an edition of her poetical remains. In 1842 
he was appointed Minister to Spain, which post he filled for four years. On his 
return he prepared for publication in a separate form " Oliver Gold- 
smith, a Biography," which had been prefixed to a Paris edition of that 
author's works. Though closely following the works of Prior and Forster, this 
life will continue to be read for the sweetness of the style, and the genial color- 
ing of the pictures of Irving's favorite author. In 1818-'50, at the instance 
of Mr. G. P. Putnam, he published a revised edition of his works in fifteen 
volumes. The sale of this edition, up to January, 1857, was two hundred and 
fifty thousand volumes ; and this, added to about the same number sold of 
former editions, gives an aggregate sale of Irving's works in America, up to 
that date, of about five hundred thousand volumes. In this estimate, ninety- 
eight thousand volumes of the "Life of Washington," sold to January, 1857, 
and the large sale of " Wolfert's Rsost " are not included. This sale exceeds 
what has been claimed for the works called " Sensation books," and is credit- 
able to the taste of the nation. In round numbers, the sale in 18G3 has reached 
eight hundred thousand. Irving's " Life and Letters," edited by his nephew, 
Pierre M. Irving, is also published by Mr. Putnam, in four volumes, and, as a 
biographical work, is considered one of the most interesting books of the age, 
quite equal, if not superior, to Lockhart's Life of Scott. From the period of 
his return from Spain, Irving was more or less occupied by his last and longest 
work, the "Life of Washington." With reverence he now approached the 
great work of his life, the embodiment of the memory of the Father of his 
Country — the Namesake-Chief, upon whom his infant eyes had gazed, and 
whose shade he venerated. Pie dipped the pen of dignity in the fount of truth, 
and wrote from his hexrt the record for posterity. How this record is appre- 
ciated by the publisher of all of Irving's works, let the following brief sketch 
testify. It is well that the deeds of one whom the world has delighted to ' 
honor, should be transmitted by the patriarch of American literature — one who 
ever honorably bore his name ; and it is well that we should receive that recoid 
from the hand of one whose lineage is connected with those who proudly 
achieved our independence. The first volume was published in 1855, and the 
fifth, completing the v/ork, in August, 1859. It was Irving's last woi'k. He 
then folded his hands placidly upon his breast, and calmly awaited the Great 
Deliverer. 

For some years before his death the writer resided at his house of " Sunny- 
side " on the left bank of the Hudson, not far from the city of New York. It 

2 



18 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

is in close vicinity to " Sleepy Hollow," of which he wrote long ago : "If ever 
I should wish for a retreat where I might steal from the world and its distrac- 
tions, and dream quietly away the remainder of a troubled life, I know of none 
more promising than this little valley." The house of " Sunnyside " is the 
identical dwelling, represented as the castle of Baltus von Tassal, where Icha- 
bod Crane paid his addresses to the little Dutch beauty Katrina, and in which 
the great country frolic took place. It is a poet's cottage, lost in verdure and 
fiowers, nestling down on the banks of that beautiful river, which the master 
of the mansion has illustrated and adorned by his genius. The house is in the 
genuine Dutch style, and everything about it is redolent of old days. "A 
venerable weathercock of portly dimensions," says Irving in a communication 
to the ' ' Knickerbocker Magazine," " which once battled with the wind on the 
top of the Stadt-house of New Amsterdam in the time of Peter Stuyvesant, now 
erects its crest on the gable end of my edifice. A gilded horse, in full gallop, 
once the weathercock of the great Van der Heyden palace of Albany, now 
glitters in the sunshine and veers with every breeze on the peaked turret over 
my portal." Of the great river, he adds: "The Hudson is, in a manner, my 
first and last love ; and after all my wanderings and seeming infidelities, I 
return to it with a heartfelt preference over all the rivers of the world." Here, 
on the banks of the beautiful stream, away from "the world and its distrac- 
tions," as he had wished, passed tranquilly the last days of Washington Irving. 
If his early life had been "troubled," his latter days were serene and happy. 
A great and honorable fame had come to meet him, and a public affection based 
upon the genial goodness of his heart. A very deep and sincere piety was, how- 
ever, the great element of his happiness — a religious conviction, heartfelt and 
unaffected, which often caused him to shed tears as he listened to the solemn 
service of the Episcopal Church, to which he belonged. He was never married, 
in consequence of the death of a young lady, Miss Hoffman, whom he had loved, 
and whose Bible, " an old and well-woi-n copy, with the name in a delicate 
lady's hand," lay on the table by his bedside when he died ; but the children 
of his relatives and friends were dear to him, and a genial family circle, consist- 
ing of his brother and his nieces, made the hospitable home of Sunnyside as 
bright and pleasant as its name. Irving's age was not exempt from infirmity. 
A chronic asthma caused him often great pain, but he bore it with manly pa- 
tience. His death was occasioned by a sudden stroke of disease of the heart, 
and took place soon after he had retired to his chamber, on the night of Novem- 
ber 28, 1859. The intelligence caused profound sorrow and regret throughout 
the country. Honors were paid to his memory, by numerous historical and 
literary societies, in which the most eminent men bore testimony to the extent 
of the public grief and loss ; and on December 1, the day of his funeral, the 
bells of New York city were tolled, in accordance with the suggestion of the 
civic authorities, and the flags in the harbor and on the public buildings dis- 
played at half-mast. A great procession of relatives, friends, and representatives 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHOKS. 19 

of various institutions, followed the hearse to the graveyard at Tarrjtown ; 
many eloquent sermons were delivered by prominent divines, eulogizing the 
piety and goodness of Irving's character. He was borne to his grave by a road 
which winds through " Sleepy Hollow ;" and near that place, rendered famous 
by his genius, he now sleeps. 



DISCOURSE ON WASHINGTON IRVING. 



BY WILUAM CULLEN BRYANT. 



^ "We have come together, my friends, on the birthday of an illustrious 
citizen of our Republic ; but so recent is his departure from among us, that 
our assembling is rather an expression of sorrow for his death than of con- 
gratulation that such a man was born into the world. Hi's admirable writings, 
the beautiful products of his peculiar genius, remain to be the enjoyment of the 
present and future generations. We keep the recollection of his amiable and 
blameless life, and his kindly manners, and for these we give thanks, but the 
thought will force itself upon us that the light of his friendly eye is quenched, 
that we must no more hear his beloved voice, nor take his welcome hand. It 
is as if some genial year had closed and left us in frost and gloom ; its flowery 
spring, its leafy summer, its plenteous autumn, flown, never to return. Its 
gifts are strewn around us ; its harvests are in our garners ; but its season of 
bloom, and warmth, and fruitfulness is past. We look around us and see that 
the sunshine, which filled the golden ear and tinged the reddening apple, 
brightens earth no more." 

Washington Irving was born in New York, on the 3d of April, 1783, but a 
few days after the news of the treaty with Great Britain, acknowledging our 
independence, had been received, to the great contentment of the people. He 
opened his eyes to the light, therefore, just in the dawn of that Sabbath of 
peace which brought rest to the land after a weary seven years' war— just as 
the city of which he was a native, and the republic of which he was yet to be 
the ornament, were entering upon a career of greatness and prosperity, of 
which those who inhabited them could scarce have dreamed. It seems fitting 
that one of the first births of the new peace, so welcome to the country, should 
be that of a genius as kindly and fruitful as peace itself, and destined to make 
the world better and happier by its gentle influences. In one respect, those 
who were born at that time had the advantage of those who are educated 

* Extract fiom the opening and closing of a discourse on the life, character, and genius of 
Washington Irving, delivered before the New York Historical Society, at the Academy of Music 
April 9, 18C0. ' 



20 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

under the more vulgar influences of the present age. Before their eyas were 
placed, in the public actions of the men who achieved our revolution, noble 
examples of steady rectitude, magnanimous self-denial, and cheerful self-sacrifice 
for the sake of their country. Irving came into the world when these great 
and virtuous men were in the prime of their manhood, and passed his youth in 
the midst of that general reverence which gathered round them as they grew 
old. 

William Irving, the father of the great author, was a native of Scotland— one 
of a race in which the instinct of veneration is strong — and a Scottish woman 
was employed as a nurse in his household. It is related, that one day while 
she was walking in the street with her little charge, then five years old, she saw 
General Washington in a shop, and, entering, led up the boy, whom she pre- 
sented as one to whom his name had been given. The General turned, laid his 
hand on the child's head, and gave him his smile and his blessing, little think- 
ing that they were bestowed upon his future biographer. The gentle pressure 
of that hand Irving alvvay.s remembered, and that blessing, he believed, attended 
him through life. Who shall say what power that recollection may have had 
in keeping him true to his high and generous aims ?" 

o o c- o c- w c- 

I have thus set before you, my friends, with such measure of ability as I 
possess, a rapid and imperfect sketch, of the life, character and genius of Wash- 
ington Irving. Other hands will yet give to the world a bolder, more vivid 
and more exact portraiture. In the meantime, when I consider for how many 
years he stood before the world as an author, with a still incrc:!sing fame — 
half a century of this most changeful of centuries — I cannot hesitate to predict 
for him a deathless renown. Since he began to write, empii-es have risen and 
passed away ; mighty captains have appeared on the stage of the world, per- 
formed their part, and been called to their account ; wars have been fought and 
ended, which have changed the destinies of the human race. 

If it were becoming, at this time and in this assembly, to address our 
departed friend as if in his immediate presence, I would say: " Farewell, thou 
who hast entered into rest prepared from the foundation of the world, for 
serene and gentle spirits like thine. Farewell, happy in thy life, happy in thy 
death, happier in thy reward to which that death was the assured passage ; for- 
tunate in attracting the admiration of the world to thy beautiful writings ; 
still more fortunate in having written nothing which did not tend to promote 
the reign of magnanimous forbearance and generous sympathies among thy 
fellow-men. The brightness of that enduring fame which thou hast won on 
earth is but a shadowy symbol of the glory to which thou art ailmitted in the 
world beyond the grave. Thy enand upon earth was an errand of peace and 
good- will to men, and thou art now in a region where hatred and strife can 
never enter, and where the harmonious activity of those who inhabit it 
acknowledges no impulse less noble or less pure than that of love." 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 21 

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, 



An American novelist, born in Burlington, New Jersey, September 15, 1789; died 
at Cooperstown, New York, September 14, 1851. He was the youngest of five sons, 
and youngest but one of seven children, of Judge William Cooper. In his first year, 
he was removed with the family to Cooperstown, where, several years previousl}\ 
his father had become possessed of large tracts of land by the extinguishment of 
Indian titles, on the shores of lake Otsego, the head waters of the Susquehanna 
river, and nearly the geographical centre of the State of New York. In this unbro- 
ken wilderness, far remote from any civilized settlements capable of affording pro- 
tection, the enterprising pioneer began a career of great success and influence, by 
erecting tiie imposing Hall which figures so extensively in tlie romances, and subse - 
quently became the final resting-place of his son, on the southern shore of the 
beautiful lake. Judge Cooper was not only a man of remarkable energy and busi- 
ness skill, as his adventurous encounter of the toils and the perils of frontier life at 
such a time would indicate, but possessed a strength and sagacity of mind, which, 
added to the great wealth accruing from the rapid settlement of the country at the 
close of the revolutionary war, gave him and his family a kind and degree of influ- 
ence, for many years unequaled in that region, and wliich reacted visibly, and not 
altogether happily, upon the character and tastes of the family. Traces of the in- 
dependence, not to say hauteur, engendered by the sunshine of such position and 
influence, are to be detected in many passages both of the history and the writings 
of the subject of this notice, and wliich, perhaps, contributed to the personal troubles 
and collisions of his later years. Mrs. Cooper, his mother, whom in personal aspect, 
as well as in mental and moral traits, Mr. Cooper greatly resembled, wastlie daugh- 
ter of Richard Fenimore, of New Jersey, a family of Swedish descent, and great 
personal excellence and social distinction. She, too, like her husband, possessed 
remarkable energy of cliaracter, and a cultivated and commanding intellect, and is 
remembered to have been fond of romance reading. Her immaculate housekeeping, 
personal beauty, and family consequence, made her,toa memoi-able degree, a sharer 
in the influence of her husband, both in the household and in the community. In the 
midst of the wild scenes, rude experiences, and exciting incidents of frontier-life, 
tinged with these strong domestic influences, passed the youth of Mr. Cooper, until 
at the age of tliirteen he was first sent from home to be entered in the freshman class 
of Yale College. The youngest pupil of the institution, and by f;ir too young to reap 
the benefits or to escape the perils of College life, he seems to have given no indica- 
tions of his future eminence. The College soon ceased to be sufficiently attractive 
to detain him, and at the close of his third year he voluntarily left it, and entered 
the United States Navy, first as common sailor, in which capacity he remained 
nearly two years, chiefly on board the Sterling, when he was promoted, first to the 
rank of midshipman, and before the close of his sea-life to that of lieutenant, partly 
with the sloop-of-war Wasp, and afterward for a time on lake Ontario. Tliat the 
experiences of his naval life had a powerful influence, if not in determining his ca- 
reer, at least in preparing him for it, is obvious from the perfect familiarity with sea 
life which his nautical tales everywhere display. He was niarried, January 1, 1811, 
to Miss Susan DeLancey, sister to the Bishop of the western diocese of New York, a 



22 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

lady wbosfi great excellence of character, cultivated tastes, and unaffected piety, 
laid the foundation of an nniaterruptedly happy and refined domestic life, which 
visibly affected and ennobled the character of the husband. During this year he 
resigned his post as lieutenant and removed to Mamaroneck, Westchester county, 
New York, and was there residing, when a few years subsequently he began his 
career as an author. It is narrated, that while reading aloud to his wife a newly 
published English novel of domestic life, and yawning over its insipid pages, he ex- 
claimed that he could write a better novel himself. The quick reply, " You had 
better try," like many another casual seed dropped at the right time into prepared 
soil, begot the determination to make the attempt. A few Aveeks of secret labor as- 
tonished the wife with the opening chapters of " Precaution." The style, scenery, 
and spirit of the book readily betray its origin, and when completed it gave but 
little satisfaction to the autlior, or pleasure to the reader. It was, however, deemed 
by partial friends, who listened to its successive chapters as they were produced, 
worthy of publication ; and mainly through the intervention of Mr. Charles 
Wilkes, a literary friend, on whose judgment he much relied, it was published 
in two volumes, in 1819, at the author's own expense. Though not inferior 
to the average novels of the time, it was so imitative as to have passed, for 
a long time, as a work of English origin. It was not acknowledged by the author 
for many years, and was never, with his approval, included among his works. But 
it did the great service of awakening to consciousness the real powers of the man. 
The resolution to write another work of fiction was soon formed, and everything 
favored the choice of the fortunate theme. The country was emerging from the 
war with Great Britain, and the public tastes and associations naturally pointed to 
the still more stirring experiences of our revolutionary era as a popular subject of 
ielineation. Casting aside all models, he ventured upon the wholly untrodden 
ground of a domestic tale, abounding in characters familiar to all, and depending 
lor its interest upon scenes in which a large part of the living generation had actu- 
ally participated. It was one of those bold ventures which genius alone could 
conceive or successfully carry through. The composition of the work was kept 
secret until near its completion, when again the enthusiasm of listening friends 
induced the author to undertake its publication. For a long time no publisher 
could be procured, when at last the mingled sagacity and friendship of Mr. Charles 
Wiley came to the rescue, it was only at the author's expense, and by his personal 
.supervision of the proof sheets, and sometimes actual participation in the tj'pe- 
fietting, that the first volume was made ready for publication. It here came to 
nlmost a stand-still. Whether from Avant of confidence in its success, or want of 
means, the author was strongly disposed to abandon it entirel}'. He would gladly 
have given the copyright to any publisher, who would complete it at his own ex- 
pense, but could find no one to accept it. Thus, though commenced soon after the 
appearance of "Precaution," it was three years before the "Spy" was issued. 
It had, as it deserved, an immediate success. The novelty of its subject, the 
originality of every feature, the exciting and familiar scenes, the well-known char- 
acters hardly disguised by the thin veil of fiction, the pungent incense to national 
pride and patriotic feeling, and withal the rough vigor and manly quality of the 
style, were well fitted to the popular habits and tastes. At home it was cordially 
though cautiously praised by the critical few, but eagerly devoured by the uncritical 
many, until the seal of its fame was set in England by a popularity rivaling even 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHOES. 23 

that of the Waverley Novels, then at the very zenith of their success. It ran 
rapidly throu,a;h many editions in both countries, and soon spread to the continent 
and over Europe, with a sale which has scarcely declined to the present day ; and 
it has probably been honored with a greater number of translations, attracted a 
more universal admiration, than any similar work ever written in English. A few 
years before his death, Mr. Cooper had information of its translation into Persian, 
having, before this, been reproduced in Arabic, and we believe some other Oriental 
languages. The success of the work necessarily determined the author's future. 
From this point, he abandoned his profession, and gave himself to authorship 
through a long life, with a diligence and industry seldom exemplified in the lives 
of men of letters. In whatever light this work of the " Spy," be regarded, it is a 
marvelous creation. The opening of a new and fresh fieLi of imaginative litera- 
ture, it has never been surpassed in the essential qualities of the successful novel, 
[ts obvious defects were all forgotten in the blaze of strong emotion. It lias been 
unjustly compared with other works of its class ; and the author was often styled, 
IS much to his distaste as to his injurj', the American Walter Scott. But no com- 
parison of the kind can be just. Its originality of topic, style, and spirit, is its 
most characteristic feature, and the real source of its universal popularity'. An 
interval of two years produced the " Pioneers." With far more truth than prefa- 
tory professions often disclose, Mr. Cooper has given its real motive and inspiration. 
He had written, he says, his first work because it was said he could not write a 
grave tale : so to prove that the world did not know him, he had written one so 
grave that nobody would read it. He wrote the second to see if he could not 
overcome this neglect of the reading world. The third, said he, " is written exclu- 
sively to please myself." Family pride, the well-remembered experience of fron- 
tier-life, and the intense love of nature acquired in childhood, found almost equal 
expression in this singularly beautiful and poetic tale. It lacks the stirring 
incidents and favorite familiar characters of the "Spy," but in its descriptions 
of nature, and pictures of pioneer experience and of happy domestic life, as 
well as in poetical feeling and literary finish, it is perhaps the ablest of his 
productions. With the exception of the " Bravo;" it was the favorite of its 
author, and its composition was a labor of love ftbm beginning to end. Every 
predilection was gratified ; the position of the Temple family was amply as- 
serted ; and the wild glories of forest, hill, and lake, mingling in the earliest and 
most permanent impulses of his being, were reproduced in a manner equally grati- 
fying to his pride, his taste, his affections, and his deeper views of life. Though it 
had not to beg for a publisher, it was, nevertheless, far less immediately popular at 
home than its predecessor. Abroad, however, its striking portraiture of American 
scenery, and tlie new pliases of life it portrayed, made it a great favorite, and con- 
tributed at the time sensibly to the reputation of American literature. His own 
tastes gratified. Cooper's next work developed a new and still more characteristic 
aspect of his genius. The " Pilot" appeared within a year after the " Pioneers ;" 
and its immediate occasion is said to have been the perusal of Scott's " Pirate," 
whose awkward and unnatural descriptions of sea adventure, and ignorance of the 
sailor character, at once provoked the resolution to excel it by reproducing his own 
experiences and observation of life upon the seas. The " Pilot " outran in its success 
all it predecessors ; and though not equal in some of the best qualities to the " Red 
Rover," or other of his sea tales, it instantly gained a position which no subsequent 



24 SKETCHES OF AMEEICAX AUTHORS. 

work of the kind has been able to contest. Tlie highest critical authorities were 
first to proclaim its excellences. " The empire of the sea," exclaimed the Edinburgh 
Review, " is conceded to him by acclamation." This, like the " Spy," was a bold 
attempt, which nothing but high creative abilities could have carried to success. It 
opened a wholly new life to reading landsmen, and inaugurated a school of imagina- 
tive works which has numbered among its cultivators some of the highest names of 
modern literature. Two years subsequently appeared "Lionel Lincoln," which, 
taking the " Spy " for a model, lacked originality, and fell far short of its predeces- 
sors in popularity, though evidently more elaborately and carefully written, and not 
without points of singular felicity and power. Its comparative failure seems to have 
put the author again upon his mettle, as after a brief interval appeared the " Last 
of the Mohicans," perhaps the most exciting, well-sustained, and popular of his 
achievements upon a field he has ever held as peculiarly his own. Never before had 
the romance of the Indian character, the wild excitement of savage life, and the 
striking and novel features of the genuine trapper been so vividly depicted ; nor had 
the author's dramatic powers ever been more successfully exhibited. Like its pre- 
decessors, it was immensely popular, and immediately reproduced in almost every 
civilized language. It contributed more to the general impressions of the Old World 
as to aboriginal life in the New, than all other works combined. Following this, in 
1827, appeared the "Red Rover," generally esteemed the most powerful and dra- 
matic of his sea tales; and in 1828, the "Prairie," scarcely less interesting as a 
romance, or less triumphant as a work of art, than the " Mohicans." Between these 
two, the author, with his family, visited Europe, where they remained till 1833. His 
residence in Europe gave rise to some of the unpleasant passages of his life. An 
ardent friend of his country and her institutions, he was quick to resent, in what- 
ever sphere, the false imputations and slanders with which Europe, at that nascent 
period of our history, was filled ; and j'et this patriotism rendered him more keenly 
sensitive to the faults of manner, principles, or conduct by which his countrymen 
were continually bringing this laud into reproach. He was impelled to contend 
tvith both, and to appear to be pleased with none. Indignant at the enemies of 
republicanism for their principles, he was scarcely less so at its friends for their 
inconsistencies and faults. These faults he felt that it was both his right and duty 
to correct. His literary position, his unquestionable patriotism, and the zeal, not to 
say ostentation, with which he defended his country, in public and private, gave him, 
as he thought, the right to expect that well-meant rebuke of obvious evils would 
be both welcome and effective. He accordingly first wrote his " Letters of a 
Traveling Bachelor," the object of which was, amid much that was useful and 
entertaining, to point out some of the more glaring of our national defects. But, 
however laudable the purpose, the effect was anything but beneficial. This was 
the beginning of a series which it would have been equally to the credit and the 
comfort of Mr. Cooper to have left unwritten. The apparent censoriousness 
and assumption which overlaid such works as the " Re idence in Europe," the 
" Letter to his Countrymen," and still more offensive " Homeward Bound," " Home 
as Found," and the " Mannikins," not only precluded popular favor, but gave an 
offense that required all the recollections of his genius and the splendor of his first 
achievements to suppress. While this series was in progress, and apparently all 
engrossed with political discussions, he sient forth another of his marvelous crea- 
tions, the "Bravo," which, like the "Spy," the "Pilot," and the "Mohicans," 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 25 

broaclied a new idea, and gave to tlio world the first successful specimen of the 
novel of opinion — a species which has since grown to be a large and potent element 
of our literature. The " Bravo " united the most stirring incidents and vivid imagi- 
native delineations, with a skillful and penetrative inculcation of political opinions. 
In Europe it was received v»-ith mingled applause and hisses. As a work of art, it 
was hailed as one of his most masterly efforts ; but its radical democrac}' and revo- 
lutionary ideas displeased the governing classes, by whom it was at once placed 
among the outlaws of literature. In Mr. Cooper's own estimation this was his ablest 
work, and, except the " Pioneers," most completely expressed the convictions of 
his understanding and passions of his heart. Alternating with some political works, 
Mr. Cooper published, beside the "Bravo," while still in Europe, the '' Wept-of- 
Wish-ton-wish," "Heidenmauer," and the " Headsman of Berne." On his return to 
this country, iu 1833, there rapidly appeared the series of works whicli had been 
previously commenced, the aim of which was the correction of the national foibles. 
These productions had from the first provoked the warm retort of the periodical 
press in the United States, which as they proceeded in some instances descended to 
an intolerable license of personal abuse. Prior to his departure for Europe, he was 
beard to say that these assaults might go on without notice five j^ears after his 
return; but if not tlien suspended, he would resort to legal redress. He was as 
good as his word : beyond the satires contained in his fictions, no word of defense 
was published by him to the many charges of his political enemies until full five 
years had elapsed. About this time, Mr. Cooper published his "Naval History of 
the United States," the only historical production from his pen, except a series of 
naval biographies, originally published in a magazine. This was a work of great 
labor and research, which had long been projected, and was regarded by the author 
with a partiality which, with all its acknowledged excellences, tlie public judgment 
has hardly confirmed. Yet its painstaking accuracy, as well as the vigor and com- 
pleteness of some of its descriptions, undoubtedly entitle it to a high place in his- 
torical literature, and render it confessedly the best work on the subject, if not en- 
tirely what was expected of his genius and his special familiarity with the subject. 
This work, following the personal tales and essays above referred to, and, in a few 
particulars, taking novel and unpopular views, elicited from the press attacks of 
such violence and personality as to provoke the author into the most remarkable 
series of legal prosecutions ever known in the annals of literature, and which con- 
tinued several years to absorb tlie larger share of his time and best energies of his 
mind. »His representation of the battle of Lake Erie, especially, trenched upon some 
of the most cherished views of the public, in seeming to detract from Commodore 
Perry's accustomed honors in this exploit, and in assigning to Commodore Elliott, 
a comparatively obscure officer, who had never shared in tlie fame of the victory, 
an unexpected, if not the chief, merit of the affair. But, whatever may be the truth 
of the case. Cooper's position was taken from no personal antipathies of the one, or 
predilections for the otlier, but strictly from fidelity to historic truth ; and its accu- 
racy has the additional sanction of tlie award of three competent arbitrators to 
whom the wliole question was submitted as the result of the legal prosecutions. 
For these prosecutions Cooper has been much censured ; but an impartial survey of 
the whole painful episode will go far toward, we do not merely say relieving his course 
from the odium of vindictive passions, but toward investing the whole procedure with 
something of the dignity and merit of a public service. The law of libel, at the com- 



26 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

mencement of these suits, was uiidefined and well nigh nugatory. Practically, there 
was but little defense of private character against the most wanton assaults of the 
press. If the restraints of the law of libel were justifiable at all, there was now ample 
occasion for giving it a new definition and emphasis ; and from all that transpired of 
Cooper, whether in public conduct or private speech, nothing is more clear than that 
the correction of this great evil was the leading motive for plunging into the sea of 
troubles which awaited him. He never denied, nor desired to restrict, the right of 
criticisms. The harshest condemnation of his own works, when restricted to the 
works themselves, never evoked complaint or reply. But the immunity of personal 
character he believed in, and after a contest of years established. During this period 
some twenty distinct suits for libel were brought by him — in some cases two or three 
successive suits against the same offender for libels occurring on the very comments 
upon the previous verdicts, and in all, or nearly all, he was successful. When it is 
considered that the press of the country was mostly arrayed against him, and that he 
fought in the open face of unfriendlj^ juries, reluctant Judges, and a strong popular 
prejudice, this simple fact goes far toward furnishing a vindication of his course. 
That he also wrought a reform in the habits and manners of the press, as well as 
revived the practical efficiency of a much-neglected safeguard, is not now seriously 
questioned. Daring tlie heat and strife of these libel suits, which, being almost 
wholly conducted in person, necessarily involved a great expenditure of energy and 
time, the reading world was surprised and delighted, almost to the forgiveness of 
every provocation, by the appearance of the " Pathfinder," which revived the 
charming scenes and characters of his favorite creations. In none of the tales of the 
forest has Cooper displayed more refined taste, or genial feeling, or higher qualities 
than in this work. After the issue of another novel, founded on foreign scenes, 
'' Mercedes of Castile," which, in spite of many excellent points, was hardly success- ~ 
ful, this was followed by the last of the Leatherstocking tales, the " Deerslayer " — 
chronologically the last, but first in the plot of the series. This, too, had im- 
mense success, and was greeted with enthusiasm scarcely inferior to that which her- 
alded the " Spy," or the " Pilot." About 1844 Mr. Cooper became interested in the 
political questions growing out of the tenure of lands in certain portions of the State 
of New York, and the organized refusal of the tenants or occupants to pay the ac- 
customed rent-toll. Every instinct of personal feeling, as well as political convic- 
tion, arraj'ed him strongly against the novel doctrines, and led to the preparation 
of the " Littlepage " tales — a serious of novels of remarkable tact and skill, if not of 
imaginative force, the " Satanstoe," the "Redskins," and the "Chain-bearer," 
which, if they had fortunately advocated the popular view of the question, would 
have been regarded as models of their kind. As it was, they fell into ob.-curity, and 
never gained the credit they were justly entitled to. From the termination of his 
suits to his decease, his pen was as busy as at any period of his life. There appeared, 
in rapid succession, the "Two Admirals," in 1842; " Wing and Wing," and "Ned 
Myers," in 1843 ;" Wyandotte," "Afloat and Ashore," and " Miles Wallingford," 
in 1844; the "Crater," in 1846; "Jack Tier," and "Oak Openings," in 1848 ; the 
" Sea Lions," in 1849 ; and the " Ways of the Hour," his last, in 1850— works which 
display, if not the vigor and genius of his earlier years, no decline of careful study 
or inventive skill ; and which especially evince increasing strength and mellowness 
of religious feeling — a feature still more visible in his daily life. While engaged, in 
the following year, upon work of historical character, after a few months' rapid 



SKETCHES OP AMERICAN AUTHORS. 27 

decline, hi.s evtraonlinary physical powers suddenly gave way and he dipd tn i^ 
surprise and grief, not less of his family than of the puWie Per'sonalh Mr r 
was a noble specimen of a man, possessing a massive and corpact L a coZ" 
nance strikingly marked with the indications of intellectual ^.t^r^^ 
With manly beauty. His published portraits, though iml^g^ tm^nf ^T^^ 
t.ce to the ,mpressu-e port and vivacious presence of the man. in hi's social trait 
so far as h.s native reserve and strong predilections would permit, he waTm !"an ' 
mous, hospitable, and kind to a fault. Eacounterin<r in a rac.c.ed In 1 d^. i 
saHor upon the docks of New York, an old messmate o^f ^is ear r^ea- i e, ht heart 
and home were open to him, and to his generous desire to help hL o„ 

narrative of f. cts. Th,s was a type of the impulses perpetually springin-^ and 
adorning h.s hfe Prank, generous, independent, and not over-refined dther 
by native constitution or culture, enemies were as plentifully made a asi v 
concded by his singular admixture of opposing qnalities. His-intellect a if "Is 
checkered by much the same variety of lights. There were the elements of ge„rs 
diet' botrr"°"- 'T '''''''' '"^" '''''''''''' ^"'^ -^^^'^ creativ:im,S:d 

bj defect, both of orig.nal mental structure, and of literary culture not kss con 
sp.cuous. But, taken all in all, no American writer has attained more" s weU 
as universa fame, and none has more truly exemplified the brighter qnal ties wW h 
we could desire to be characteristic of American literature. Tho^^h fortme 
cause, they secured trie author but a limited remuneration. Cooper's woit Ze 
had a„ unparalleled sale, both at home and abroad. Besides th factlh 1,1 e 

Ger2 rT"" "T "''™'"^'' '' *'^^ ^PP^^^^^ - »™--- editions in France 
Germany Russia, and many other European countries, and were circulated Large, v 
and continuously in Great Britain, they have Lad a constant sale athome "h J 

^:T ""'' '"'""°° "°'" ''' ™°- elegant forms, until, atthe^res n^ 

time, there is in preparation an illustrated edition, in thirty-two v;iumes w, eh 
promises.to be a fitting monument to the memory of our greatest imaginat e .vn r 



2S SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 



WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT, LL.D., 



An American historian, son of William Prescott, LL. D., an American lawyer, 
was born in Salem, Mass., May 4, 1796, died in Boston, January 28, 1859. His mo- 
ther, who died in 1852, was the daughter of Thomas Hickling, for many years U. S. 
Consul at the Azores, and was eminently distinguished for benevolence and active 
charity. At the age of 12 young Prescott removed with his family to Boston, where 
he was placed in the Academy of Dr. Gardiner, a pupil of Dr. Parr. He entered 
Harvard College in 1811, and was graduated in 1814. In the last year of his student 
life, while in the college dining-hall, a classmate playfully threw at him a crust of 
bread, which struck one of his eyes, inflicting an injury which deprived the eye of 
sight, except so much as sufficed to distinguish light from darkness. Excessive use 
of the other eye, for purposes of study, brought on rheumatic inflammation, which 
depiaved him entirely of sight for some weeks, and left the eye in too irritable a 
state to be emploj'ed in reading for several years. Subsequently, for some years, 
he was enabled to use it for many hours of the day, but eventually it became so 
weak that during the latter half of his life Mr. Prescott could ouly read for a few 
moments at a time, and could scarcely see to write at all. Soon after leaving col- 
lege he crossed the Atlantic for the benefit of his e3'es, and consulted the most 
celebated oculists of London and Paris who, however, could give him no effectual 
relief. He traveled extensively in England, France, and Italy, and resided for 
several months at Rome and Naples. On his return to Boston, after two years' ab- 
sence, he married and settled for life in his father's family. He had begun the study 
of the law, but relinquished it in consequence of the state of his eyesight, and re- 
solved to devote himself to literature as a profession in which he could regulate his 
own hours, in reference to what his sight might enable him to accomplish. He had 
early conceived a passion for historical writing, and in 1818 determined to devote 
the next ten years to the study of ancient and modern literature, and to give 
the succeeding ten to the composition of a history. He accordingly applied 
himself to the study of French and Italian literature, and at one time meditated 
writing the life of Moliere, for which he made an extensive collection of materials. 
This project, and another for the history of Italian literature, he reluctantly' aban- 
doned because of the great amount of reading which they involved. Of his studies 
in this direction the chief fruits were given to the public iu a series of essays in the 
"North American Review," on "Moliere," "Italian Narrative Poetry," and 
"Poetry and Romance of the Italians," which, with others on kindred topics, were 
printed in a volume of " Miscellanies " (London and Boston, 1845), of which several 
editions have since been published. 

About 1825 Mr. Prescott began to study Spanish literature and historj-, and after 
much deliberation selected as the subject of his first work, the reign of Ferdinand and 
Isabella. He made, at great expense, a collection of materials, and before begin- 
ning to write, was able, with the assistance of his friends in Europe, to secure as he 
says in the preface to the history, "whatever can materially conduce to the illustra- 
tion of the period in question, whether in the form of chronicle, manners, private 
correspondence, legal codes, or official documents." Among these were varied con- 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 29 

temporary manuscripts, covering tlie wliolo ground of the narrative, none of which 
had been printed, and some of them but little known to Spanish scholars. But 
when his materials were collected, his eyes, which for a time had been well enough 
to enable him to read a few hours each day, become worse than ever. He 
obtained the assistance of a reader, who, however, knew no language but English. 
" I tauglit him to pronounce Castilian in a manner suited, I suspect, much more to 
my ear than to that of a Spaniard ; and we began our wearisome journey through 
Mariana's noble history. I cannot even now call to mind, without a smile, the 
tedious hours in which, seated under some old trees in my country residence, we 
pursued our slow and melancholly way over pages which afforded no glimmering of 
light to him, and from which the light came dimly struggling to me through a half 
intelligible vocabulary. But in a few weeks the light become stronger, and I was 
cheered by the consciousness of my improvement ; and when we had toiled our way 
through seven quartos, I found 1 could understand the book when read about two- 
thirds as fast as ordinary English." At a later period Mr. Prescott obtained the 
services of a reader acquainted with Spanish and other languages of continental 
Europe, and could, with this aid, prosecute his studies with some degree of facility. 
After more than ten years of labor, the " History of Ferdinand and Isabella" was 
ready for the press. A few copies were privately printed, and shown to Mr. Sparks, 
Mr. Ticknor, and other friends, whose cordial approbation at length encouraged the 
diffident author to publish the work. It appeared in Boston and London toward the 
end of 1837, in three volumes, octavo, and was immediately received with great 
favor by the public. Don Pascual de Gayangos, the eminent Spanish scholar, re- 
viewed it in the " Edinburgh Review," and pronounced it " one of the most successful 
historical productions of our time." Mr. Richard Ford, who was better versed in 
Spanish literature than any other Englishman of his day, praised it highly in the 
"Quarterly Review," as a work " that need not fear comparison with any that has 
issued from the European press since this century began." The work was soon 
translated into (Jerman, French, and Spanish, and the Royal Academy of History at 
Madrid elected the author a corresponding member. Six years of labor were de- 
voted to the " History of the Conquest of Mexico " (3 vols., 8vo., London and New 
York, 1843), and four yeai's to the "Conquest of Peru" (2 vols., 8vo., London and 
New York, 1847). These works were received with the highest favor in all parts of 
the civilized world, aud praises and honors were showered on the author. He was 
elected a member of nearly all the principal learned bodies in Europe, and in 1845 
was made a corresponding member of the Institute of France. In 1850 Mr. Prescott 
made a short visit to Europe, passing a few months in England, Scotland, and Bel- 
gium. After his return he applied himself to the composition of his history of Philip 
II., which he had long meditated, and for which he had made an extensive collection 
of books and manuscripts. The first two volumes of this work appeared at Boston 
in 1855, and the third in 1858. The entire history was intended to comprise six vol- 
umes, but was never finished. On February 4, 1858, Mr..Prescott experienced a 
slight shock of paralysis, from the effects of which, however, he soon recovered, and 
resumed his literary pursuits. Eleven months afterward, while at work with his 
secretary, in his study, he was struck speechless by a second attack of paralysis, 
and died about an hour afterward. Beside his histories, Mr Prescott wrote brief 
memoirs of his friends John Pickering and Abbott Lawrence, and supplied to a Boston 
edition of Robertson's " History of Charles V." a sequel, relating the true circum- 



30 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

stances of the Emperor's retirement and death. In person Mr. Prescott was ta'l and 
Blender, with a fresh and florid complexion, and lively, graceful manners. " His 
personal appearance," says Mr. Bancroft, " was singularly pleasing, and won for 
him everywhere in advance a welcome and favor. His countenance had something 
that brought to mind the ' beautiful disdain' that lowers on that of the Apollo. But 
while he was high-spirited, he was tender, and gentle, and humane. His voice was 
like music, and one could never hear enough of it. His cheerfulness reached and 
animated all about him. He could indulge in playfulness, and could also speak 
earnestly and profoundly ; but he knew not how to be ungracious or pedantic." 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 31 



GEORGE BANCROFT, 



The American liistorian and statesman, born at "Worcester, Mass., October 3, 1800. 
He was the son of a Massachusetts clergyman, the Rev. Aaron Bancroft, and the 
lessons which he learned at home prompted the formation of a grave, humane, and 
catholic character. He pursued his preparatory studies at Exeter, N. H., and in 
1813 entered Harvard College, where he gave special attention to metaphysics and 
morals, and acquired a strong and lasting predilection for the writings of Plato. He 
graduated in 1817, and with an extensive scheme of study, embracing hardly less 
than the whole circle of sacred and profane, ancient and modern literature, started 
for the universities of Germany. At Gottengen, where he remained two years, he 
studied German literature under Benecke, French and Italian literature under 
Artaud and Bunsen, the Oriental languages and the interpretation of the Scriptures 
under Eichhorn, ecclesiastical and the more recent ancient history under Blumen- 
bach, and especially the antiquities and literature of Greece and Rome under Dissen. 
an enthusiastic admirer of Plato, with whom he went through a thorough course of 
Greek philosophj', and read in the Greek nearly every one of the writing? of Plato, 
At that time, he selected liistory as his special branch, giving as one of his reasons, 
the desire to see if facts would not clear up theories, and assist in getting out the 
true one. Having received at Gottengen, in 1820, the degree of doctor of philosc. 
phy, he repaired to Berlin, where he heard the lectures of Wolf, the renowned editor 
of Homer, of Schleierraacher, and of Hegel. He was a herald of these professors of 
their fame, in the New World, and his ardor and accomplishments gained for him a 
welcome reception. He was intimate in the houses of Schleiermacher, Wilhelm von 
Humboldt, the great lawyer Savigny, Saffenberg, the future historian of England, 
Varidiagen von Ease, and other famed literary persons. He availed himself of his 
stay in Berlin to observe the administration of the Prussian Government, in many of 
its departments. In the spring of 1821, he began a journey tlirough Germany and 
other parts of Europe. He had already, in a G'Jttengen vacation, seen Dresden, its 
galleries and principal men, and had made the acquaintance of Goethe at Jena. At 
Heidelberg, he was several hours every day with the historian Schlosser, discussing 
history and poetry, especially Dante, and read with him several Greek tragedies. 
In Paris he became acquainted with Cousin, and Alexander von Humboldt, and par- 
ticularly with Benjamin Constant, passed a month in England, and returned to the 
continent to travel on foot through Switzerland. He spent eight months in Italy, 
formed an acquaintance with Monzoni at Milan, and a friendship for life with the 
Chevalier Bunsen at Rome, where he also knew Niebuhr. His time in Italy was also 
thoroughly employed in studying the ecclesiastical government, and in seeing pic- 
tures, churches, statues, and ruins. He returned to America in 1822, and accepted 
for one }'ear the office of tutor of Greek in Harvard University. During his year of 
tutorship, he preached several sermons, yet he seems not long to have entertained 
the thought of entering the clerical profession. In 1823, in conjunction with Dr. 
Joseph G. Coggswell, he established the Round Hill School at Northampton, in 
which some of the most learned young men of Germany were employed as teachers. 
The standard, as a preparatory school, was too high for the standard of collegiate 



32 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

instruction in this country, j-etmuch was done b}' this institution toward introducing 
a better system of study and class-books. He published at this time his translation 
of Heerin's " Political and Ancient Greece," and a small volume of poems bore 
witness to the enthusiasm with which he observed the scenery of Switzerland, and the 
ruins of art in ancient Italy. He was also busily meditating and collecting materials 
for a history of the United States. In 182G he took the first step in his political career 
by delivering before the citizens of Northampton, at their request, an oration, in 
which he avowed his principles to be for universal suffrage and uncompromising 
Democracy. He was elected, in 1S30, without his knowledge, to the General Court 
of Massachusetts, but refused to take his seat, and the year after declined a nomina- 
tion, though certain to have been elected, for the Senate of his State. 

In 1834 appeared the first volume of his " History of the United States," the ma- 
ture fruit of a long-cherished purpose. In 1835 he drafted an address to the people 
of Massachusetts, at the request of the Young Men's Democratic Convention, and 
was for a time very actively engaged in speaking at public meetings, and in draw- 
ing up political resolutions and addresses. He removed in this year to Springfield, 
where he resided three years, and completed the second volume of his history. In 
1838, he was appointed by President Van Buren Collector of Boston. In 1840 the 
third volume of his history was published, upon which he diligently labored among 
other engagements. In 1844 he was nominated by the Democratic party as their 
candidate for Governor of Massachusetts, and though not elected, received more 
votes than any candidate has received, either before or since, on the purely 
Democratic ticket. During the long and violent canvass he was in the city of New 
York, studying, often for twelve hours in the day, manuscripts and documents illus- 
trative of our early history. 

After the accession of Mr. Polk to the Presidency, in 1845, Mr. Bancroft entered 
the Cabinet as Secretary of the Navy. He signalized his administration of this 
office by the establishment of the Naval School at Annapolis. While Secretary of 
the Navy, Mr. Bancroft gave the order to take possession of California, and it was 
carried into effect before he left tlie naval department. During his term of office 
he also acted as Secretary of Wa.v pro tern, for a montli, and gave the order to Gen. 
Taylor to march into Texas, which was the first occupation of Texas by the United 
States. In 1843, Mr. Bancroft exchanged his position in the Cabinet for the office of 
Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain. In 1849, the Universitj' of Oxford made 
him a doctor of civil law, and he had before been chosen correspondent of the Royal 
Academy of Berlin, and also of the French Institute. He used the opportunity of 
his residence in Earope to perfect his collections on American History'. He made 
several visits to Paris to study the archives and libraries of that city, being Hided in 
his researches by Guizot, Mignet, Lamartine, and De Tocqueville. In England, the 
ministr}' opened to him the records of the State paper office, embracing a vast 
array of military and civil correspondence ; and also the records of the treasury, 
with its series of minutes and letter-books. In the British Museum, also, and in the 
private c:)lloction3 of many noble families he found valuable and interesting manu- 
scripts. 

He returned to the United States in 1849, and took up his residence in New York, 
and began to prepare for the press the fourth and fifth volumes of his history, which 
were published in 1852. The applause which had followed the publication of his 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 33 

preceding volumes was heiglitened upon the appearance of tlie new and long-ex- 
pected volumes. In 1854 the sixth volume was issued, and the seventh appeared in 
1858. The eighth hais just been issued. 

The work of Mr. Bancroft may be considered as a copious philosophical treatise, 
tracing the growth of the idol of liberty in a country designed by Providence for its 
marked development. It is written in a style marked by singular elaborateness, 
compactness, and scholarly grace, and is esteemed one of the noblest monuments 
of American literature. It has several times been republished abroad, and trans- 
lated into foreign languages, the German version havingalready passed through four 
editions. Mr. Bancroft has published various public addresses, and has collected a 
volume of "Miscellanies," chiefly upon historical and philosophical topics, including 
a copious survey of German literature, selected from his numerous contributions to 
different reviews. In this volume is contained the masterly discourse upon " The 
Necessity, the Reality, and the Promise of the Progressof the Human Race," which 
he delivered before the New York Historical Society, at the celebration of the fiftieth 
anniversary. 

He is now vigorously prosecuting his historical labor, passing the winter in the 
city of New York, and the summer by the sea-side at Newport, and occasionally 
lending the weight of his name and ability to a politicalcause by presiding and speak- 
ing at a public meeting. 



34 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 



JAMES KIRKE PAULDING, 



An American author, born in Pleasant Valle}', Dutchess county, N. Y., August 22, 1779, 
died at Hyde Park, in the same county, April 6, 18G0. His father, a descendant of a 
Dutch family, originally established in Ulster county, cultivated a farm at the com- 
mencement of the Revolution, on the celebrated "neutral ground " of Westchester 
county. The depredations of tories and "cowboys" having compelled him to remove 
his family to a place of safety, he resided for several years at Pleasant Valley, but, 
after the peace, returned to Westchester county, where young Paulding passed his 
youth. 

His education was acquired partly at a neighboring village school, and partly by 
a course of self-instruction ; and, about the commencement of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, he removed to New York, where a great portion of his subsequent life was 
passed. Becoming intimate with Washington Irving, whose elder brother, William, 
had married Paulding's sister, he published, in connection with him, a series of 
periodical essays of a humorous and satirical character, entitled, "Salmagundi, 
or the Whim-Whem," and " Opinions of Lancelot Longstaff and others," with 
which the career of each author conimenced. 

This literary partnership terminated with the appearance of the twentieth number- 
on January 25, 1808 ; but neither Paulding nor Irving ever attempted to make a 
division of their contributions, and the whole is included in the stereotype edition of 
the works of the former. The success of "Salmagundi" encouraged Paulding to 
devote himself to literature, and about the commencement of the war between the 
United States and Great Britain, he published successfully an allegorical satire, 
entitled, "The Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan." In 1813 
appeared his " Lay of the Scottish Fiddle," a parody of Scott's " Lay of the Last 
Minstrel," which was reprinted in London. It was followed by the " Smited States 
and England" (1814), a pamphlet defending American institutions from the attacks 
of the London " Quarterly Review," which brought the author under the notice of 
President Madison, who appointed him Secretary to the Board of Navy Commis- 
sioners. A visit to Virginia, in 1815, furnished the materials for his next work, 
"Letters from the South, by a Northern Man (1817) ; and in 1818 he published his 
longest and best poem, "The Backwoodsman," thoroughly American in scenery, 
incidents, and sentiment. In 1819 he produced a second series of " Salmagundi," 
written wholly by himself, and in 1822 " A Sketch of Old England, by a New England 
Man," followed in 1824 by a similar work, entitled, "John Bull in America, or the 
New Munchausen," purporting to be an English cockney's account of his tour in the 
United States. In 1823 appeared his first novel, " Koningsmarke," followed by 
" Merry Tales of the Three Wise Men of Gotham " (1826) ; " The Traveler's Guide " 
(1828), subsequently called "The New Pilgrim's Progress," in consequence of a 
whimsical mistake as to the charecter of its contents ; " Tales of the Good Woman " 
(1829), and the "Book of St. Nicholas" (1830), which* were chiefly of a satirical 
character. "The Dutchman's Fireside" (1831); a story of the "Old French 
War," and commonly regarded as his finest work of fiction, passed through six 
editions in the course of a year, was republished in France, and translated into 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 35 

the French and Dutch languages. His next novel, "Westward Ho!" (1832), the 
scene of which is laid principally in Kentucky, also met with great success. In 
1835, he published a "Life of Washington," for youth ; and in the succeeding year 
a work entitled, " Slavery in the United States," in which lie defended the institu- 
tion on social, economical, and physiological principles. In 1837, having for a 
number of years previous held the position of Navy Agent for the Port of New 
York, he was appointed by President Van Buren Secretary of the Navy. In 1841, 
he retired to a country seat at Hyde Park, on the Hudson River, where the remain- 
der of his life was passed. He wrote two more novels, "The Old Continental, or 
the Price of Liberty " (184G), and "The Puritan and his Daughter" (1849). He 
also published, anonymously, an illustrated volume of stories, entitled, " A Gift from 
Fairy Land " (1838), and, in conjunction with his son, William Irving Paulding, a 
volume of " American Comedies " (1847). 



36 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTIIOKS. 

BALPH WALDO EMERSOI^, 



An American poet and essayist, born in Boston, May 25, 1803. He is the son of tlie 
Rev. William Emerson, pastor of the First Church in that city; in his eighth year, 
on the death of his father, he was sent to one of the public grammar schools, and 
was soon qualified to enter the Latin school. Here his first attempts in literary com- 
position were made, consisting not merely of the ordinary exercises by which boys 
are drearily inducted into the mysteries of rhetoric, but of original poems recited at 
the exhibitions of the school. In 1817 he entered Harvard College, and was gradua- 
ted in August, 1821. He does not appear to have held a high rank in his class, though 
the records show that he twice received a^Bowdoin prize for dissertations, and once 
a Boyleston prize for declamation. He was also the poet of his class on " Class 
day." While at the University he made more use of the library than is common 
among students, and when graduated was distinguished among his classmates for 
his knowledge of general literature. For five years after leaving college he was 
engaged in teaching school. In 1826 he was " approbated to preach" by the Mid- 
dlesex Association of Ministers, but liis health at this time failing, he spent the win- 
ter in South Carolina and Florida. In March, 1829, he was ordained as colleague of 
Henry Ware, at the Second Unitarian Church of Boston. He belongs to a clerical 
race ; for eight generations, reckoning back to his ancestor Peter Bulkly, one of the 
founders of Concord, Mass., there had always been a clergyman in the family, either 
on the paternal or maternal side. He was the eighth, in orderly succession, of tliis 
consecutive line of ministers. In September, 1830, he was married to Ellen Louisa 
Tucker, of Boston, who died in February, 1831. In 1832 he asked and received dis- 
mission from the Second Church, on account of differences of opinion between tim- 
self and the Church, touching the Lord's Supper. From that period we may date 
that impatience with fixed forms of belief, and that instinctive suspicion of everj'- 
thing having the faintest appearance of limiting intellectual freedom, which were 
afterward so conspicuous in his writings, and which have sometimes been carried so 
far as to give a dash of willfulness and eccentricity to his most austerely honest 
thinking. In December, 1832, he sailed for Europe, where he remained nearly a 
year. On his return, in the winter of 1833-4 he began that career as a lecturer in 
which he has since gained so much distinction, with a discourse before the Boston 
Mechanics' Institute, on the somewhat unproriiising subject of " Water." Three 
others followed, two on Italy, descriptive of his recent tour in that country, and the 
last on the " Relation of Man to the Globe." In 1834 he delivered in Boston a series 
of biographical lectures on Michael Angelo, Milton, Luther, George Fox, and 
Edmund Burke, the first two of which were afterward published in the " North Ameri- 
can Review." In this year also he read at Cambridge a poem before the Phi Beta 
Kappa Society. In 1835 he fixed his residence at Concord, Mass., where he has 
since lived. In September, 1835, he married Lidian Jackson, of Plymouth. During 
the winter he delivered in Boston a course often lectures, on English Literature. 
These were followed, in 1838, by twelve lectures on the Philosophy of History ; in 
1837, by ten lectures on Human Culture ; in 1839, by ten lectures on Human Life ; in 
1841, by seven lectures on The Times ; and since that period he has delivered in Boston 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 37 

five or six courses of lectures, which are still anion.- his unpublished writin-s Of 
his printed works, a small volume entitled " Nature " (published in 1836) an oration 
before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, with the general title of the " American Scholar " 
(1837), an address to the senior class of the Cambridge Divinity School (183S) and 
the "Method of Nature " (1841), contained the most prominent peculiarities of his 
scheme of idealism, and by their freshness and depth of thought, and compact beauty 
of expression, allured many readers into disciples. In 1840 the school of New En-r- 
land transcendentalists was sufficiently large to demand an organ ; and a qnarteiTv 
periodical, called the " Dial," was started, with Miss Margaret Fuller as editor 
assisted by A. B. Walcott, William H. Channing, Mr. Emerson, Theodore Parker' 
George Ripley, and others. It was published for four years, and during the last 
two years of its existence it was under the editorship of Mr. Emerson" In 1841 
the first series of " Essays " was published. The author might proudly say of these' 
as Bacon said of his own, " That their matter could not be found in books."" In 1844* 
a second series of essays was published, evincing, as compared with first,equal brevity 
and beauty of expression. In 1846, he collected and published his poems. The next 
year he visited England, for the purpose of fulfilling an engagement to deliver a series 
of lectures before a union of Mechanic's Institutes and other societies. In 1849 he 
collected in one volume his " Nature " and lectures and college addresses 
which had previously been issued in pamphlet form, or printed in the " Dial." In 
1850, " Representative Men," a series of masterly mental portraits, with some of 
the features overcharged, was published. To the "Memories of Margaret Fuller 
Ossoli," which appeared in 1852, he contributed some admirable interpretative 
criticism. In 1856, he published "English Traits," a work in which he siezes and 
emphasizes the characteristics of the English mind and people. Mr. Emerson has 
also delivered many unpublished addresses on slavery, woman's rights, and other 
topics of public interest; and he has been one of the most prominent of the 
lecturers who address the lyceums of the country. As a writer, Mr. Emerson is 
distinguished for a singular union of poetic imagination with practical acuteness. 
His vision takes a wide sweep in the realms of the ideal; but is no less firm and 
penetrating in the sphere of facts. His observations on society, on manners, on 
character, on institutions, are stamped with rare sagacity, indicating a familiar 
knowledge of the homely phases of life, Avhich are seldom viewed in their practical 
relations. One side of his wisdom is worldly wisdom. The brilliant transcendcntalist 
is evidently a man not easy to be deceived in matters pertaining to the ordinary 
course of aflliirs. His common-sense .shrewdness is vivified by a pervasive art. With 
him, however, wit is not an end, but a means, and usually employed for the detection 
of impostures. Mr. Emerson's practical understanding is sometimes underrated, from 
the fact that he never groups his thoughts by method of logic. He gives few 
reasons, even when he is most reasonable. He does not prove, but announces, 
aiming directly at the intelligence of his readers, Avithout striving to extract a 
reluctant assent by force of argument. Insight, not reasoning, is his process. 
The bent of his mind his to the ideal laws, which are perceived by the intuitive 
faculty, and are beyond the province of dialectics. Equally conspicuous is his 
tendency to embody ideas in the forms of imagination. No spiritual abstraction 
is so evanescent but the truth transforms it into a concrete reality. He seldom 
indulges in the expression of sentiment; and in his nature, emotion seems to 
be less the product of the heart than of the brain. Mr. Emerson's style is in 



38 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

tlie nicest harmony with the character of his thoughts. It is condensed, 
almost to abruptness. Occasionally he purchases compression at the expense 
of clearness, and liis merits as a writer consist rather in the choice of words 
then in the connection of sentences, though his diction is vitalized by the presence 
of a powerful creative element. His thought dictates his word, he stamps it with its 
own peculiar quality, and converts it from a fleeting sound into a solid fact. The 
singular beauty and intense significance of his language demonstrate that he has 
not only something to say, but knows exactly how to say it. Fluency, however, is 
out of the question in a style which combines such austere economy of words with 
the determination to load every word with vital meaning. But the great character- 
istic of Mr. Emerson's intellect is the perception of the sentiment of beauty. So 
strong is this, that he accepts nothing in life that is morbid, uncomely, haggard, or 
ghastly. The fact that an opinion depresses, instead of invigorating, is with him a 
BufiBcient reason for its rejection. His observation, his wit, his reason, his imagina- 
tion, his style, all obey the controlling sense of beauty, which is at the heart of his 
nature, and instinctively avoid the ugly and the base. Those portions of Mr. 
Emerson's writings which relate to philosophy and religion may be considered as 
fragmentary contributions to the " Pliilosophy of the Infinite." He has no system, 
and indeed system in his mind is associated with charlatanism. His largest gene- 
ralization is " Existence." On this inscrutable theme, his conceptions vary with 
his moods and experience. Sometimes it seems to be man who parts with his 
personality in being united to God ; sometimes it seems to be God who is im- 
personal, and who comes to personality only in man ; and the real obscurity or 
vacillation of his metaphysical ideas is increased by the vivid and positive concrete 
forms in which they are successively clothed. Generally, the Divine Being is felt or 
conceived as a life-imparting influence divinizing nature and man, and as identical 
with both. He adores the Spirit of God rather than God, the rays of the sun rather 
than the sun, and does not appear to give sufiQcient prominence to the obvious 
principle that the individuality of the Divine Nature, being an infinite individuality, 
may include infinite expansiveness and infinite variety of working in infinite self- 
consciousness ; and that the appearance of impersonality comes from the concep- 
tion of personality under infinite human limitations. 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 39 



JOHX PENDLETON KENNEDY, 



An American Statesman and antlior, was born in Baltimore, Marjiimd, October 
22, 1775. He was graduated at Baltimore College, in 1812. In 1814 he served 
as a volunteer in the ranks, taking part in the battles of Bladensbnrg and 
North Point, on October 24th and September 12th. It was his intention to 
enter the army, but the peace with England altered his plans. In 1816 he was ad- 
mitted to the practice of the law, which he followed successfully for twenty years. 
In 1818 he commenced authorship by the publication, in connection with his friend 
Peter HoflTman Cruse, of the " Red Book," a serial of light characters in prose and 
verse, issued about once a fortnight, and continuing two years. In 1820 he was 
elected to the Maryland House of Delegates, and rechosen the next two years. In, 
1828, being appointed, by President Monroe, Secretary of Legation to Chili, he 
accepted the post, but saw fit to withdraw from it before the mission sailed. Taking 
a very strong interest in politics, and warmly espousing the cause of President J. 
Q. Adams, Mr. Kennedy had no opportunity for some years of exercising any public 
function (the citj' of Baltimore being devoted to General Jackson) ; but he diligently 
hibored with his pen in defense of his political principles. In 1830 he wrote a review 
of the Hon. C. C. Cambreling's report on commerce and navigation, combating its 
anti-protective arguments. This reply was widely circulated, and next year he was 
appointed a delegate of the national convention of the friends of manufacturing 
industry meeting in New York, and in conjunction with Warren Duttanof Massachu- 
setts, and Charles J. IngersoU of Pennsylvania, was appointed a committee to draft 
an address advocating the protective policy. In 1832 he published his first novel, 
" Swallow Barn ; or, a Sojourn in the Old Dominion," descriptive of the genial and 
hospitable plantation-life of Virginia. This work was very favorably received, and 
at once established the reputation of its author as a man of letters. In 1835 appeared 
his second novel, " Horseshoe Robinson, a Tale of the Tory Ascendancy," proving 
the most successful of his writings. The story is of the revolutionary days, the 
scene laid in the Carolinas,and the hero Galbraith Robinson, nicknamed Horseshoe, 
a real personage whom Mr. Kennedy had met in his travels in 1819. In 1818 he pub- 
lished " Rob of the (Bowl?) a Legend of St. Inigoes," relating to the Maryland prov- 
ince in the days of Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore. This romance, involving 
much historic detail of the religious differences of the age between the Catholic and 
Protestant settlers, as well as vivid pictures of the freebooters who scoured the 
coasts at that period, has never attracted the same interest as the other tales, 
although as a work of art it is not inferior to them. All three, revised and illustrated, 
were republished in New York in 1852. In 1838 Mr. Kennedy was elected to the 
House of Representatives at Washington, and at once took a prominent rank among 
the Whig members. He was chosen one of the Electors in the Presidential contest 
which resulted in the favor of General Harrison, in 1840. In 1841 he was again 
elected to Congress, and appointed Chairman of the Committee on Commerce. In 
this position he drew up a report upon the reciprocity treaties and their effects on 
the shipping interest of the country, which commanded much attention. On Presi- 
dent Tylor's abandonment of the Whigs, Mr. Kennedy was appointed by a meeting 



40 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

of the Whig members of both Houses to draft a party "Manifesto," which he did, 
defending the anti-democratic policy and condemning the course of the Chief Magis- 
trate. In 1843 he was a third time elected to Congress. At the next election he 
was defeated by a small vote, but in 1846 he was returned to the Maryland 
House of Delegates, and chosen Speaker. In 1849 appeared his "Life of William 
Wirt, Attorney-General of the United States," which has passed through a second 
edition. In 1852, on the retirement of the Hon. William A. Graham from the 
post of Secretary of the Navy, he was appointed by President Fillmore to fill 
the vacancy, and in discharge of his ofBcial duties strongly advocated the Japan 
ExpDdition, and the necessity of its embodying an imposing naval force. He also 
warmly favored Dr. Kane's second voyage in search of Sir John Franklin. Since 
1852 he has divided his occupations between literature, manufacturing business and 
railroad interests. His occasional writings and addresses have been numerous, the 
best known being " Quodlibet," and " Defense of the Whigs." He has in vie-vy 
the publication of various MSS., including notes of two visits to Europe made within 
the last five years. He is Provost of the University of Maryland, Vice-President 
of the Maryland Historical Society, and a member of several learned associations. 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 41 

.WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, 



An American poet, was born November 3, 1794, at Cummington, Hampshire count.r, 
Mass. His father, Peter Bryant, was a distinguished local physician, who had also 
traveled considerably, and devoted much time to the culture of his mind. He took 
unusual care in the intellectual and moral development of his children, and was re- 
warded in the case of all of them, and particularly in that of William, with early 
evidence of their proficiency. The poet, in his beautiful hymn to death, alludes to 
this parent in the lines beginning : 

For he is in his grave, who taught my youth 
The art of verse, and in the bud of life 
Offered me to the Muses ; 

which is no poetical exaggeration, but a literal truth. There are few instances of 
Ijrecocity more remarkable than that of Bryant. He communicated lines to the 
country gazette before he was ten years of age, and in his fourteenth year his 
friends caused to be printed two considerable poems, the "Embargo," a political 
satire, and the " Spanish Revolution." These passed to a second edition the next 
year (1809), and such were their merits, that in the preface to that edition, it was 
found necessary to certify the production of them by a person so young, in order 
to remove the skepticism of the public. In his nineteenth year he wrote " Thana- 
topsis," which still holds its place, in general estimation, as one of the most impressive 
poems in the language. He had, in 1810, entered Williams College, where he was 
soon distinguisded for his attainments in language and in polite literature. At the 
end of two years he took an honorable dismission, and engaged in the study of law, 
at first with Judge Howe, in Worthington, Mass., and afterwards with William Baylis, 
in Bridgewater. Admitted to the bar in 1815, he commenced practice in Plainfield, 
and afterward removed to Great Barrington. He speedily rose to a high rank in the 
local and State Courts ; but his tastes inclined him rather to letters than law. In 
1816 his poem " Thanatopsis " was published in the " North American Review," and 
introduced him to the acquaintance of Mr. Richard H. Dana, who was one of the 
club which then conducted the " Review." He contributed also several prose 
articles to that periodical. In 1821 he delivered, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, 
at Harvard College, a didactic poem on the "Ages;" in that j'ear several of his 
poems were collected in a volume at Cambridge, and obtained for him immediate 
recognition as a writer of the highest merit. He removed to the city of New York 
in 1825, and was engaged as an editor of the "New York Review," soon after 
merged into the " United States Review," to which he contributed several criticisms 
and poems, which increased his reputation. For these periodicals he received 
many articles from his friends, Dana and Halleck. In 1826 he connected himself 
with the "Evening Post" newspaper, under the editorial control of William Cole- 
man. At this time it was inclined to what was termed Federalism, and Mr. Bryant, 
whose tendencies were toward republicanism, sought to give it more and more a 
republican character. When he acquired an exclusive control of its columns, a few 
years later, he rendered it decidedly " democratic," taking ground openly in favor 
of freedom of trade, and against all partial or class legislation. 



42 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

From 1827 to 1830 Mr. Bryant was associated with Robert Sands and Julian C. 
Verplanck in the editorship of the " Talisman," a highly successful annual ; and he 
contributed about the same time the tales of " Medfield" and the " Skeleton Cave," 
to a book entitled "Tales of the Glowber Spa." In 1832 a complete edition of his 
poems was published in New York, and a copy of it reached Washington Irving, 
then in England ; he caused an edition to be printed there, with a laudatory preface. 
It was most generously reviewed by John Wilson, in " Blackwood's Magazine," and 
from that time Mr. Bryant's reputation in England, and on the continent of Europe, 
has stood as high as it does in liis own country. Subsequently, editions of 12mo., 2 
vols., and 18mo., 1 vol, in blue and gold, became widely popular. Having associ- 
ated William Leggett with himself, in the management of the " Evening Post," he 
sailed witli his family to Europe in tlie spring of 1834. He traveled extensively 
through France, Italy, and Germany, residing for months together at the princi- 
pal capitals, and enlarging his knowledge of the languages and literatures of the 
leading nations. His poems bear witness to his familiarity with the Spanish, Italian, 
German and French languages, which he has continued to cultivate. After return- 
ing to his native country, and resuming his professional labors for some years, Mr. 
Bryant went again to Europe in the j^ear 1845. In the same year an illustrated edi- 
tion of his poems was published simultaneously in England and tlie United States, 
(1 vol. 8vo). In 1849, an edition was iss'ied by a house in Philadelphia, and in the 
same year Mr. Bryant made a third visit to Europe, and extended his voyage into 
Egypt and Syria. The desultory letters written to his journal during these wander- 
ings were published in a book called " Letters from a Traveler," soon after his 
return. But in the intervals of these foreign journej's he had by no means neglected 
his own country, and the same volume contains evidences of his sojourn in nearly 
all parts of the United States, from Maine to Florida, and of a trip also to the island 
of Cuba. Mr. Bryant's love of nature is so pervading, and his habits so active, that 
he has scarcely allowed a 3-ear to pass without accomplishing a visit to some local, 
ity remarkable for its beauty and grandeur. An inveterate pedestrian, also, he is 
always delighted when he can make these visits on foot, and under circumstances 
in which he can control his movements, without regard to the exigencies of steam- 
boats and railroads. About the year 1845 Mr. Bryant purchased " an old-time 
mansion," embowered in forest-trees and vines, near the beautiful village of Risbyn, 
on Long Island, where he has since resided, earnestly employing his leisure hours in 
gardening and the field. And here, as if in illustration of his own poems, he has, in- 
stead of curtailing nature to any conventional standard, allowed her to run riot in 
her own luxuriance. Here and there a woodland path, opening up some charming 
vista — a rustic seat — a graceful bridge spanning a sj'lvan lake — or a giant of the 
forest embraced by some clinging vine — betoken more the taste to let nature alone 
in her secret workings, than to reduce her to any artificial scale. Yet, the "old- 
time mansion " has undergone revolutions. Art, which spread the shrubbery has 
transformed it by airy, trellised columns, and a charming bay-window, to one of 
the most delightful retreats that ever courted the leisure moments of a poet. The 
choicest of grafts flourish M'ith a grateful return under the care of this wonderful 
lover of nature. Giant trees, gadding vines, and humble wild-flowers, all own his 
kindly presence. The border of this " domain of Bryant" is laved by the blue billows 
of the Sound, which, communicating with the ocean, formed that mystic telegraph 
connecting him with home, when standing upon the shore of the south of France. 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 43 

The sublimity of the thought confessed the poet. We speak of the Domain of 
Bryant as a poem ; one delved from its native soil, and illustrated by his own hand, 
ii) the busy mart, Mr. Bryant is to us an enigma ; but once upon his own grounds 
we recognize the Master Spirit of American Poetrj'. But his love of art, at the same 
time, has been cherished by intimate association with the more eminent artists of the 
country, and his walls are adorned with many of their friendly offerings. More than 
one j'oung artist, who now ranks high among us, owes his advancement to the 
kindly encouragement of Mr. Bryant's friendly criticism. In 1848 Mr. Bryant was 
called upon to deliver the funeral oration on Thomas Cole, his personal friend, and 
among the foremost of American landscape painters. Again, in 1852, on the occa- 
sion of the commemoration held in honor of the genius and the worth of the late 
James Feniniore Cooper, and in view to the erection of a monument to that celebra- 
ted novelist in the city of New York, he was appointed to pronounce a discourse 
upon his life and writings. Of the respective works of these authors it has been 
said: — " For many years the only two native authors ever found in the American 
artist's meagre library abroad, on the diplomat's table, and in the banker's salon, 
were Cooper and Bby ant— because, through the novels of the one and the poems of 
the other, the history and the scenery of home could be so authentically revived." 

Of Mr. Bryant's various writings in prose, it has been said that they contain " no 
superfluous word, no empty or showy phrase," but are marked tliroughout by " pure, 
manly, straightforward, and vigorous English." His poems are characterized by 
extreme purity and elegance in the choice of words, and compact and vigorous yet 
graceful diction, great delicacy of fancy, and a genial, yet profoundly solemn and 
religious philosophy. In rhythm, and the mellifluous cadence of true poetry, he is 
unsurpassed. As a minute aud sympathetic observer of nature, he is without a rival, 
and he differs from the mass of mere descriptive poets, by seeing nature through the 
spiritual as well as the bodily vision. He inclines to delicate tints instead of gor- 
geous coloring ; and, if he hid been an artist, would have chosen sculpture instead of 
painting. 

Mr. Bryant made another journey to Europe in 1857 and 1858, and has given 
graphic descriptions of the countries through which he passed, in a series of letters 
addressed to the "Evening Post." He was received with great distinction at the 
literary circles of Madrid, and an interesting accountof his visit was published in the 
Spanish newspapers. About two j'ears since, Mr. Parke Godwin, Mr. Bryant's son- 
in-law, who had previously been associated editorially with the " Evening Post," 
now assumed the responsibility of proprietorship in connection with Mr. Bryant. 

Mr. Bryant still continues to write occasional poems, remarkable for their faultless 
diction and perfect melody. He is a careful rather than a voluminous writer. His 
" Forest Hymn," exquisitely illustrated by Howe, a young American engraver, was 
published in 18G1. A new edition of his poems, containing all fugitive pieces written 
since the publication of the Illustrated Edition, is much inquired for by the public. 



44 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 



An American poet, was born in Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807. He is the 
son of the Honorable Stephen Longfellow, for many years an eminent member of 
the bar in that city. At the age of fourteen he entered Bowdoin College, where he 
graduated in 1825. Daring his academic course he gave evidence of the abilities 
wliich have since gained him such high distinction both as a scholar and a poet. 
Among his productions at this period may be mentioned, " Hymn of the Moravian 
Nuns," "The Spirit of Poetry," "Woods in Winter," and "Sunrise on the 
Hills." After leaving college, he entered the office of his father, with some vague 
intention of studying law, but soon relinquished it for a more congenial occupation. 
Having been appointed Professor of Modern Languages and Literature at Bowdoin 
college, with the privilege of residing some j'ears abroad for observation and 
study, he gladly accepted the office, and in 1826 sailed for Europe, passing that 
year in France, and the next in Spain. Italy and Germany employed two years 
more. On his return to the United States in 1830, he entered upon the duties of 
his professorship, and held it for five years. During this time in his contribu- 
tions to the " North American Review," in his translation of the C'oplas de Mun- 
rique, printed in 1833, and in his " Outre Mer, a Pilgrimage beyond the Sea," pub- 
lished in 1835, he exhibited his desire to familiarize the cultivated mind of America 
with the national literature and national character of European countries. In 
1835, on the resignation of Mr. George Ticknor, he was appointed Professor of 
Modern Languages and Belles-Lettres in Harvard College ; and after passing that year 
and the next in a tour through Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Germany, and Switzer- 
land, he for seventeen years performed the duties of his office to universal satisfac- 
tion. In 1854 he resigned, and has since resided at Cambridge. In 1839, he pub- 
lished his exquisite prose romance of "Hyperion," and in the same year his 
" Voices of the Night," .which first gave him an extended reputation as a poet. 
These were followed by "Ballads and other Poems" (1841); "Poems on 
Slavery " (1842) ; " The Spanish Student " (1843) ; " Poets and Poetry of Europe " 
(1845); "The Belfry of the Bruges and other Poems" (1846); "Evangeline," 
perhaps his greatest work (1849); " Kavanah," a novel (1849); "Seaside and 
Fireside" (1850); "The Golden Legend" (1851); "The Song of Hiawatha" 
(1855), his most popular work, judging by the immense circulation it has obtained, 
and " The Courtship of Miles Standish " (1858). A number of his poems, scattered 
over numerous periodicals, still remain uncollected in a permanent form. The wide 
range of Mr. Longfellow's studies at an early period of life, as well as his introduc- 
tion to the picturesque and quaint features of society and manners in foreign na- 
tions, has served to give a certain cosmopolitan character to the productions of his 
pen. As a translator, he is singularly happy in transfusing not only his ideas, but 
the spirit of his originals, into apt and expressive diction ; as a critic, whether com- 
mentating on character or literature, he is the genial interpreter, rather than the 
censorious judge ; and as a poet, he appeals to the universal affections of humanity, 
by thoughts and images derived from original perceptions of nature and life. His 
f jllow-feeling with his kind gives him easy admission to the common heart. Averse, 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 4-5 

both by temperament and habit, to everj-thing harsh, bitter, disdainful, or repellent, 
there is no element in his poetry to call forth au ungracious or discordant emotion. 
It is always tolerant and human, kindled by wide sympathies, and with a tender 
sense of every variety of human condition, Mr. Longfellow combines, in a very rare 
degree, the sentiment of the artist with the practical instincts of the man of the 
world. His thoughts are uniformly lucid and transparent, and never clouded by 
fanciful speculations. The clearness, simplicitj^ and force of his leading concep- 
tions leave the impression of unity even in his longest poems. However vivid his 
imagery, it never seduces the attention from the main idea. Without attempting to 
represent the depths of passion, in his own sphere of feeling he is a genuine master, 
and the purity, sweetness, and refinement with which he delineates the affections of 
the heart, make him the most welcome of visitors at the domestic fireside. Though 
not destitute of the creating and shaping faculty, the best expression of his imagina- 
tion is perhaps to be found in the essence of beauty which pervades his writings, 
and seems to form the natural atmosphere of his mind. His susceptibility to the 
historical associations of Europe, lends a peculiar charm to his poetry. The an- 
tiquities of Nuremburg and Bruges make but a faint impression on the Bavarians 
and Belgians, who grow up in the shade of their quaint town hall, or within the 
sound of the lofty belfrey ; but they cast a spell over the imagination of the poet, 
and haunt him with perpetual visions of romance. Mr. Longfellow's works have 
passed through repeated editions both in this country and in England, and have 
called forth some of the most admirable specimens of contemporary art in their 
illustration. (Allusion to his severe domestic affliction.) 



46 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

FITZ-GREEXE HALLECK, 

An American poet, was born in Guilford, Conn., July 8, 1795. His mother, Mary 
Eliot, of Guilford, was a descendant of John Eliot, the " Apostle of the Indians." 
At the age of eighteen he became a clerk in the banking house of Jacob Barker in 
New York, in which employment he remained for many years. He was also, as he 
informs us in one of his poetical epistles, " in the cotton line." For a long period 
previous to the death of John Jacob Astor, he was engaged in his business affairs, 
and was named by him one of the original trustees of the Astor Library, a position 
he now holds. Since 1849 he has retired from commercial and financial pursuits, 
and now resides chiefly in his native place. Mr. Halleck wrote verses in his boy- 
hood, some of which, it is said, found their way into the columns of contemporary 
newspapers; but few of these effusions have been preserved, and none have been 
deemed bj' him worthy of insertion in the collected editions of his poems. His lines 
to " Twilight," the earliest in date of his collected poems, appeared in the " New 
York Evening Post" in 1818, and in the succeeding March he assisted Joseph Rod- 
man Drake in contributing the humorous series of " Croaker" papers, then recently 
commenced by the latter, to the columns of the same journal. Halleck's contribu- 
tions originally signed " Croaker, Jr.," and subsequently " Croaker & Co.," were 
discontinued after July, 1819, his coadjutor having been compelled by ill health to 
retire from the undertaking in the previous May. His death in the succeeding year 
was commemorated by Halleck in one of his most touching poems. In the latter 
part of 1819 Halleck wrote his longest poem, "Fanny," an amusing satire, in the 
measure of Byron's "Don Juan," on the fashions, follies, and the public characters 
of the day. It was completed and printed within three weeks of its commencement, 
and from the variety and pungency of the local and personal allusions enjoyed a 
great popularit}% copies having been circulated in manuscript after the original edi- 
tion, which was not immediately republished in America, had been exhausted. The 
authorship of this production, as well as the " Croaker " papers, was for a long time 
unacknowledged, although the former and several specimens of the latter are now 
included in the published editions of Halleck's poems. In 1822-3 he visited Europe, 
and in 1827 published an edition of his poems in one volume, two of the finest in the 
collection, " Alnwick Castle " and " Burns," having been suggested by scenes and 
incidents of foreign travel. This edition also included the spirited lyric "Marco 
Bozzaris," originally published in the "New York Review," to which he was an 
occasional contributor. Enlarged editions have repeatedly appeared since then, 
those in 1858 (1 vol. 8vo, and 1 vol. 12mo, illustrated) being the latest. His repu- 
tation, however, rests mainly upon the few pieces published in his earliest volume, 
which have probably been more widely read and appreciated than the productions 
of any of the older American poets who have written so little. In New York and its 
neighborhood his verses were cherished above those of any of his countrj'men, and 
throughout the United States, " Marco Bozzaris " is still one of the most popular 
poems in the language. A remarkable characteristic of his poetic genius is its ver- 
satility, the thirty-two pieces which comprise his collected poems containing speci- 
mens of delicate local satire, of elegiac or contemplative verse, of martial l^'rics, 
and of animated narrative or playful humor, each excellent in its kind. His versifi- 
cation is easy and harmonious, and, according to the testimony of one of the most 
eminent of his contemporaries, " in no poet can be found passages which flow with 
more sweet and liquid smoothness." He is greatly esteemed in private life, and his 
manners and conversation reflect the genial humor so frequently discerned in his 
poems. 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN i\UTHORS. 47 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 



An American author, was born July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, where his 
ancestors, who came from England, had settled in the early part of the seventeenth 
century. The Hawthorues in that century took part in the persecution of the 
Quakers and the witches. For a long period the men of the family followed the 
sea; "a gray-headed shipmaster in each generation retiring from the quarter- 
deck to the homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before 
the mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale, which had blustered against his 
sire and grandsire." The father of Nathaniel Hawthorne was a shipmaster, who 
died of yellow fever iu Havana, about 1810. His mother, whose maiden name was 
Manning, was a woman of great beauty and extreme sensibility. Her grief at her 
husband's death was hardly mitigated by time, and for the rest of her life she lived 
a mourner in absolute seclusion. At the age of ten, on account of feeble health, 
Nathaniel Hawthorne was sent from Salem to live on a farm belonging to his 
family, on the borders Scbago lake, in Maine. He returned to Salem for a year to 
complete his studies preparatory to entering Bowdoin college, where he was gradu- 
ated in 1825, in the same class with George B. Cheever and Henry W. Longfellow. 
Franklin Pierce, who was in the preceding class, was his intimate friend. After 
quitting college he resided many years in Salem, a recluse even from his own house- 
hold, walking out by night, and passing the day alone in his room, writing wild 
tales, most of which he burned, and some of which in newspapers, magazines, and 
annuals, led a wandering, uncertain, and mostly unnoticed life. In 1832, he pub- 
lished in Boston an anonymous romance which he has never since claimed, and 
wliich the public Las not been able to identify. In 1837, he collected from the 
annual called "The Token," and from other periodicals, a number of his tales and 
sketches, and published them in Boston under the title of " Twice Told Tales." 
The book was noticed with high praise in the " North American Review," by Mr. 
Longfellow, who pronounced it the work of a man of genius and a true poet, but it 
attracted little attention from the general public. Gradually, however, it found its 
way into the hands of the cultivated and appreciative class of readers ; and in 1842, 
a new edition was issued, together Avith a second series of tales collected from the 
"Democratic Review," and other magazines. These volumes, says Mr. George W. 
Curtis, are "full of glancing wit, of tender satire, of exquisite natural description, of 
subtle and strange analysis of human life, darkly passionate and weird." In 1838, 
Mr. Bancroft, the historian, then Collector of the Port of Boston, appointed Mr. 
Hawthorne a weigher and ganger in the Custom-house. " From the society of 
phantoms he stepped upon Long wharf, and confronted Captain Cuttle and Dick 
Hatterick." He fufllled his novel duties well, was a favorite with the sailors, it is 
said, and held his office till after the inauguration of President Harrison, in 1841 ; 
when, being a Democrat, he was displaced to make room for a Whig. After leaving 
the Custom-house he went to live with the Association for Agriculture and Educa- 
tion, at Brook Farm, in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, of which he was one of the 
foundei'S. He remained here a few months, "belaboring the rugged furrows;" 



48 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

but before the year expired he returned to Boston, where he resided till 1S42, when 
he married and took up his abode in tlie old manse at Concord, which adjoins the 
first battle-field of the Revolution, a parsonage which had never before been pro- 
faned by a lay occupant. In the introduction to the volume of tales and sketches 
entitled, " Mosses from an Old Manse" (New York, 1846), he has given a charm- 
ing account of his life here, of " wild, free days on the Assabeth, indulging 
fantastic speculations beside over fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing, or 
talking with Thowreau about pine trees and Indian relics in his hermitage at Wal- 
den." These "Mosses" were mostly written in the old manse, in a delightful 
little nook of a study in the rear of the house, from whose windows the clergyman 
of Concord watched the fight between his parishioners and the British troops in 
April 19, 1775. In the same room Emerson, who once inhabited the manse, wrote 
" Nature." Mr. Hawthorne resided at Concord for three years, mingling little with 
the society of the village, and seeking solitude in the woodland walks around it, and 
in his boat on the beautiful Assabeth, of which, in his " Mosses," he says : " A more 
lovely stream than this, for a mile above its junction with the Concord, has never 
flowed on earth — nowhere, indeed, except to lave the interior regions of a poet's 
imagination." In 1846, the Democrats having returned to power, Mr. Polk being 
President, and Mr. Bancroft Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Hawthorne was appointed 
Surveyor of the port of Salem. He carried his family thither, and the next three 
3'ears he was chief executive ofiicer in the decayed old Custom-house, of which, and 
its venerable inmates, he gave a graphic and satirical sketch in the introduction to 
the "Scarlet Letter" (Boston, 1850), a powerful romance of early New England life, 
which became at once exceedingly popular, and established for its author a high 
and wide-spread reputation. In 1849, the Whigs having regained control of the 
National Government, Mr. H.xwthorne was again removed from office. He quitted 
Salem, and, retiring to the hills of Berkshire, settled in the town of Lenox, in a little 
red cottage on the shore of the lakelet called the Stockbridge Bowl. Here he wrote 
the " House of the Seven Gables " (Boston, 1851), a story the scene of which is laid 
in Salem in the earlier part of the present centurj-. It was not less successful than 
the " Scarlet Letter," though its striking and sombre effect is wrought out of homely 
and apparently commonplace materials, and its strain of horror is prolonged almost 
to tediousness. This was followed by the " Blithedale Romance" (Boston, 1852), 
in which, as he says in the preface to the book, he " has returned to make free with 
his old and affectionately-remembered home at Brook Farm, as being certainly the 
most romantic episode of his life." The characters of the romance, he says, are 
entirely fictitious, though the scene of Brook Farm was in good keeping with the 
personages whom he desired to introduce. "The self-conceited philanthropist; the 
high-spirited woman, bruising herself against the narrow limitations of her sex ; the 
weakly maiden, whose tremulous nerves endow her with sibylline attributes; the 
minor poet, beginning life with strenuous aspirations, wliich die out with his youth- 
ful fervor; all these might have been at Brook Farm, but, by some accident, never 
made their appearance there." In 1852 Mr. Hawthorne removed from Lenox to 
Concord, where he purchased a house and a few acres of land, and has made his 
permanent home. During the Presidential canvass of 1852 he published a life of his 
college friend, Franklin Pierce, the Democratic candidate. President Pierce, in 
1853, appointed his biographer to one of the most lucrative posts in his gift, the 
United States consulate to Liverpool. Mr. Hawthorne held his office till 1857, when 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 49 

he resigned it, ami lias since been traveling with his family in various countries of 
Europe. Beside the works we have mentioned, Mr. Hawthorne has published " True 
Stories from History and Biography" (Boston, 1851) ; " The Wonder Book for Girls 
and Boys " (1851) ; " The Snow Image, and other Twice-Told Tales " (1852) ; " Tan- 
glewood Tales," a continuation of the "Wonder Book" (1853)— each in one volume, 
12mo. In 1845 he edited the "Journal of an African Cruiser" (New York, 1845), 
from the MSS. of a naval officer, Lieutenant Horatio Bridge, We clip the following 
from the Evening Post, September 7, 1863 : 

"Hawthorne's new volume is called 'Our Old Home,' and contains, besides the 
English sketches which have appeared during the past year in the Atlantic Monthly, 
his ' Consular Experiences ' in Liverpool, an antobiographical record similar to the 
personal revelations he has given in the ' Scarlet Letter,' under the title of ' Custom- 
house.' " 

4 



50 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, M. D., 



Ax American physician and poet, son of Dr. Abiel Holmes, was born in Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, August 29, 1809. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1829, and 
entered upon the study of the law, which, however, he soon abandoned for medi- 
cine, and, in 1832, went to Europe to pursue his studies, passing several years 
abroad in attendance on the hospitals of Paris and other large cities. He received 
the degree of M.D. in 1836, and in 1838 was chosen Professor of Anatomy and 
Physiology in Dartmouth College. Upon the resignation of Dr. John C. Warren, in 
1847, he was elected to fill the same chair in the medical college of Harvard 
University, which he still occupies, having abandoned the general practice of his 
profession. Early in his college-life. Dr. Holmes attracted attention as a poet. He 
contributed to the " Collegian," a periodical conducted by the under-graduates of 
the college, and also to " Illustrations of the Athenaeum Gallery of Paintings,*' in 
1831, and to the " Harbinger, a May Gift," in 1833. In 1836, he read before the Phi 
Beta Kappa Society, " Poetry, a Metrical Essay," which was published in the first 
collected edition of his " Poems " (12mo., Boston, 1836) ; " Terpsichore " was read 
by him at a dinner of the same society, in 1843, and "Urania "was published in 1846 . 
In 1850, he delivered before the Yale Chapter of the same society a poem entitled 
" Astrasa," which was publislied in the same year. His poems have passed through 
many editions since they first appeared in a collected form, and have been repub- 
lished at different times in England. In the " Atlantic Montlily " (Boston, 1857) he 
began a series of articles under the title of " The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table " 
(since published in a volume), vrhich were continued for a year, and followed by 
"The Professor at the Breakfast Table." As a writer of songs and lyrics. Dr. 
Holmes stands in the first rank; many of his poems are of this class, and have been 
written for social or festive occasions, at which they have been recited or sung by 
the poet himself. Of patriotic lyrics, few are likely to have a longer life than hi.* 
stirring verses to " Old Ironsides." He is also popular as a lyceum lecturer. He- 
has distinguished himself by his researches in auscultation and microscopy. In 1838, 
he published three "Boylston Pi'ize Dissertations;" in 1842, " Lectures on Homoeo- 
pathy and its kindred Delusions ;" 1848, a "Report on Medical Literature," in the 
"Transactions of the Xational Medical Society/' and a pamphlet on " Puerperal 
Fever;" and, in conjunction with Jacob Bigelow, an ecTiton of Hall's " Theory and 
Practice of Medicine" (8yo, 1839). He has been a frequent contributor to the 
periodicals of his profession, as well as to the " North American Review," " Knicker- 
bocker," and other literary magazines.. Dr.. Holmes marsied a daughter of the late 
Hon.. Charles Jackson, of Boston,, wkere he resides.. 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 51 

MTHANIEL TARKER WILLIS, 



Author, was born in Portland, Me., January 20, 1817. His grandfather and father, 
both of whom were named Nathaniel Willis, were well-known publishers, the former 
having been an apprentice in the same printing office with Benjamin Franklin, and 
a member of the so-called " Boston tea-party," and the latter, one of the founders, in 
181G, of the " Boston Recorder;" the first religious newspaper ever permanently 
established. The family removed to Boston when young Willis was about six years 
of age, and at the Latin school of that city and the Phillips' Academy at Andover, 
he received his preliminary education. He was graduated at Yale, in 1827. During 
his collegiate career, he published, under the signature of" Roy," a series of " Scrip- 
ture Sketches," in verse, and a few other poems, which obtained for him some repu- 
tation, besides gaining a fifty-dollar prize for a poem, offered by the publisher of 
an illustrated annual; and, immediately after graduating, he was employed by 
Samuel D. Goodrich (Peter Parley), to edit " The Legendary " and " The Token." 
In 1S2S, he established the "American Jlonthly Magazine," in which several other 
writers, since distinguished, published their first literary efforts, although the most 
numerous and characteristic articles were contributed by his own pen. At the expira- 
tion of two and a half years this periodical was merged into the " New York Mirror," 
a weeklyliterary journal, published by George P. Morris ; and soon after Mr. Willis set 
out upon a tour of travel in the old world, of which his " Pencilings by the Way," con- 
tributed to the " Mirror," afforded a lively and picturesque record. Upon arriving 
at Paris he was appointed by the American Minister, Mr. Rives, one of his attaches, 
in which capacity he gained access to the most polished circles of the European 
capitals which he visited. Having traveled through France, Italy, and Greece, and in 
parts of Asia Minor and European Turkey, he went finally to England, where, in 
1825, he was married to a daughter of General Stace, commanding at the Woolwich 
arsenal. In the same year he published three volumes of his " Pencilings by the 
Way," which on account of their alleged freedom of personal detail, were sevevely 
criticised by the " Quarterly Review" and other periodicals. For some remarks 
respecting the quality of Marryatt's novels and the class of readers who chiefly 
perused them, he was insultingly replied to by the author, whom he called to ac- 
count, and with whom he had a hostile meeting at Chatham. He also published in 
England " Inklings of Adventure" (3 vols., London), a series of tales and sketches 
which originally appeared in the " New Monthly Magazine" under the pseudonym 
of Phillip Slingsby, and which, like " Pencilings by the Way," were republished in 
America, and proved popular in both countries. In 1837 he returned home, and 
retired to " Glenmary," a small estate, situated in a picturesque bend of the 
Susquehanna river, near Oswego, N. Y., where for two years he devoted himself 
chiefly to rural occupations. In 1839 he became one of the editors of the " Corsair," 
a literary gazette published in New York ; and in the autumn of that year he re- 
visited England, where, in 1840, appeared his " Letters from under a Bridge," 
written during his residence at Glenmary, and which was followed by " Loiterings 
of Tr.avel," a miscellany of stories, poems, and European letters, and two dramas, 
" Tortesa the Usurer, and Bianca Visconte," published together under the title of 



52 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

" Two Ways of Dying for a Husband." About this time also he wrote the letter- 
press for W. H. Bartlett's views of the Scenery of the United States and Canada, and 
issued an illustrated edition of his poems. Returning to America, he established in 
New York in 1844, in connection with his former associate, Mr. Morris, a daily news- 
paper called the " Evening Mirror ;" but the death of his wife soon after, and his 
own health failing, induced to him to return to Europe. During his visit he published 
a collection of magazine articles under the title of " Dashes at Life with a Free 
Pencil" (3 vols., London, 1845). Upon returning to New York, in 1846, he published 
a complete edition of his works in one thick octavo volume, and in the same year 
he was married for tlie second time to a daughter of the Hon. Joseph Grinnell, of 
New Bedford. He again entered a literary partnership with Mr. Morris, which re- 
sulted in the establishment of the " Home Journal," a weekly journal to which 
the two editors are still regular and frequent contributors. His remaining works 
comprise " Rural Letters and other Records of Thought and Leisure" (1849) ; 
"People I have Met" (1850); "Life Here and There" (1850); " Hurrygraphs" 
(1851) ; "Fun Jottings, or Laughs I have taken a Pen to" (1853) ; " A Health Trip 
to the Tropics" (1853) ; " A Summer Cruise in the Mediterranean in a United 
States Frigate" (1853); "Famous Persons and Places" (1854), "Out-Doors at 
Idlewild" (1854) ; " The Rag Bag" (1855) ; '• Paul Stone, or Parts of a Life else 
Untold," (1856); and the " Convalescent" (1860). They have in general the dis- 
coursive and fragmentary character of his earlier works, being for the most part a 
record of the author's impressions of travel or sketches of the lights and shadows 
which flit over the surface of society. The style is singularly sprightly and graceful, 
often curiously quaint, and no American author has exhibited more constructive 
skill or a nicer choice of words. Mr. Willis has for a number of years resided at 
Idlewild, an elegant country seat on the Hudson river near Newburgh, N. Y. 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 5-3 



WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS, 



An American author, born in Cliarleston, S. C, April 17, 180G. He is of Irish 
extraction, on the father's side. At seven j'ears of age, he began to write verses, 
and daring the war of 1812, his chief empIo3'ment in his leisure hours was to com- 
pose rhj'med narratives of the exploits of the American army and navy. . Owing to 
the straitened circumstances of his family, and a sickly cliildhood, his early edu- 
cation was very simple, and at ten years of age almost his only acquirements were a 
knowledge of reading and writing. At that period his father, who had some years 
previous sought to better his fortune by migrating to the Southwest, made prepara- 
tions for removing young Simnis, who was his only surviving child, to his plantation 
in Mississippi territory. His grandmother, in whose care he had hitherto been, 
resisted his removal from her care, and an exciting lawsuit ensued, resulting in his 
retention, in accordance with his own wishes, in Charleston. For several years he 
was employed as clerk in a drug and chemical house, in Charleston, but at eighteen 
he quitted this occupation to commence the study of law. At twenty he was mar- 
ried, and on his twenty-second birthday was admitted to the bar. A year's practice 
sufficed to weary him with this profession, and, in 1828, he became editor and part 
proprietor of the "Charleston City Gazette." He had previously published a 
" Monody on the Death of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney " (1825), and two volumes 
entitled " Lyrical and other Poems," and " Early Lays " (1827). These were suc- 
ceeded by the " Vision of Cortes, Cain, and other Poems," and in the following year 
by " Tricolor, or Three Days of Blood in Paris," a metrical celebration of the French 
revolution of July, 1830. The "Gazette" having, during the period of nullification ex- 
citement, declared itself in favor of the Union, involved its proprietors in heavy pe- 
cuniary losses, and, in 1832, Mr. Simms found himself nearly penniless. Having about 
the same time, lost by death his grandmother, father and wife, he left Charleston for 
the North. At Hinghani, Mass., where he passed the summer, he prepared for the 
press the longest and the best of his imaginative poems, " Atalantis, a Story of the 
Sea" (New York, 1833), which was the means of introducing the author to the literary 
circles of New York. In the same year appeared his first prose tale, " Martin 
Faber, the Story of a Criminal," expanded from a magazine article published ten 
years previous ; and thenceforward, down to the present time, Mr. Simms has been 
one of the most industrious and prolific of authors, sending forth, in rapid succession, 
volumes of poetry, romance, history, biography, or miscellaneous literature, many 
of which have obtained a wide popularit}'. His poetical works, in addition to those 
already mentioned, comprise " Southern Passages and Pictures " (1839) ;" Donna 
Anna " (1843) ; " Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies " (1845) ; " Lays of the 
Palmetto " (184s) ; a series of ballads illustrating the deeds of South Carolina soldiers 
in the Mexican waft- ; " Poems, Descriptive, Dramatic, Legendary, and Contempla- 
tive " (2 vols., 1854); " Areytos, or Songs and Ballads of the South" (18G0) ; and a 
number of occasional pieces. He also produced two dramas, " Norman Maurice, 
or the Man of the People," and " Michael Bonhom, or the Fall of the Alamo," and 
has adapted Shakespeare's " Timon of Athens " for the stage, with numerous addi- 
tions of his own. As a writer of prose romances, however, he is altogether better 



54 SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUniORS. 

known than by any other productions of liis pen, and no American author has drawn 
more frequently from local and revolutionary historj% to give interest to his narra- 
tives. His novels may be divided into four classes, those of a purely imaginative 
character, those founded on general history, the series of revolutionary stories, and 
the romances of backwoods life, designated as the border tales. His contri- 
butions to imaginative fiction comprise a melange entitled, " The Book of My 
Lady" (1863); "Carl Werner" (183?); "Confession, or the Blind Heart" 
(1842) ; " Castle Dismal " (1845) ; and two series of tales entitled, " The Wigwam and 
the Cabin " (1845-6) and " Marie de Berniere " (1853). His historical romances are 
" The Yemassee " (1835), one of the author's most carefully written and successful 
works, founded in great measure upon his experience of the Indian character; 
"Pelayo " (1838), and its sequel "Count Julian" (1845) ; " The Damsel of Darien" 
(1845) ; " The Lily and the Totem, or the Huguenots of Florida ;" " The Maroon and 
other Tales" (1855); " Vasconcelos" (1857); and the " Cassique of Kiawah " 
(1860). The " Partisan " (1835), the first of his revolutionary stories, was followed 
in the succeeding year by " Mellichampe," and after a long interval by " Katlierine 
"Walton" (1851), both in continuation of the original story; and the three works 
constitute an epitome of the history of active military operations in the Carolinas 
during the Revolution ; with graphic pictures of scenery and manners. His remain- 
ing works of this class are, " The Scout," originally published as " The Kinsman, or 
the Black Riders of the Congaree " (1841) ; " Woodcraft," originally entitled " The 
Sword or the Distaff;" "The Foragers, a Raid of the Dog Days" (1855), and its 
sequel " Ewtaw " (1856). To the last class of his novels, or those founded on local 
history and the incidents of frontier life, belong " Guy Rivers " (1834), from which 
the German author Sealsfield has borrowed whole pages literally ;" Richard Har- 
dis" (1838) ; " Border Beagles " (1840) ; " Beauchampe, or the Kentucky Tragedy" 
(1842) ; " Helen Halsey " (1845) ; " The Golden Christmas, a Chronicle of St. John's 
Berkley " (1852) ; " Charlemont, orthe Pride of the Village ",(1856.) To the depart 
ment of history and biography Mr.Simms has contributed a " History of South Car- 
olina," " South Carolina in the Revolution " (1854), a reply to certain statements in 
relation to the course and conduct of the State, and lives of General Marion, Captain 
John Smith, the Chevalier Bayard, and General Green. Under this head may also 
be included a " Geography of South Carolina," and a number of articles on the 
"Civil Warfare of the South," and the " American Loyalists of the Revolutionary 
Period," published in the "Southern Literary Messenger," and the " Southern Quar- 
terly Review." His remaining works include, " Views and Reviews in American 
Literature," "Egeria, or Voices of Thought and Counsel for the Woods and Way- 
side," a collection of aphorisms in prose and verse ; " Father Abbott, or the Home 
Tourist, a Medley;" "Southward Ho!" (1854), which has been described as " a 
species of Decameron, in which a group of travelers, interchanging opinion and 
criticism, discuss the scenery and circumstances of the South, with frequent 
introduction of song and story;" "The Morals of Slavery," &c. He has 
also edited with notes the seven dramas ascribed to Shakespeare, but not 
published among his works, under the title of "A Supplement to Shakes- 
peare's Plays," and has been a frequent contributor to periodical literature, 
beside delivering occasional orations before public bodies or literary associations. 
Many of the biographies of the Statesmen, soldiers, and authors of South Carolina, 
in this cyclopedia, are also from his pen. Mr. Sinims resides on his plantation of 



SKETCHES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. 



woodlands near Midwa}-, S. C, where he occupies himself chiefly with rural pur 
suits and literature. He has occasionally mingled in politics , but since 1845, has^ 
held no public position. He is an industrious and methodical writer, as the number -▼ 
and variety of his books testify, and a careful observer of character and manners, 
and during extensive tours through the south and southwest, has accumulated many 
of the incidents which form the groundwork of his novels. " His manners," as one of 
the most eminent of his contemporaries has remarked, "like the expression of his 
countenance, are singularly frank and ingenious, his temper generous and sincere, 
his domestic affections strong, his friendships faithful and lasting, and his life blame- 
ess." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRES 



017 166 272 2 i 



SKETCHES OP AMERICAN AUTHORS. 



HEMY THEODORE TUCKERMA^, 



Was born in Boston, April 20, 1813. He received his educ?'' jn in Boston audits 
vicinitjs and in 1833, when about to enter college, was iaduced by the state of his 
health to visit Europe. Having passed a winter in Italy, he returned to America in 
the summer of 1834, and three years later revisited Europe, and passed nearly two 
years in Sicily and Florence. In 1845 he removed from Boston to New York, where 
he has since resided, except during the summer months, which he passes chiefly in 
Newport, R. I. In 1850 he received from Harvard University the honorary degree 
of A. M. In 1825 appeared his first publication, " The Italian Sketch Book," a col- 
lection of descriptive and historical sketches, essays, and tales ; and since that time 
he has occupied himself exclusively with literary pursuits, having been a regular 
and frequent coiitrilmtor to the " North American Review," the "Christian Exam- 
iner," the " Democratic Review," "Graham's Magazine," the " Southern Literary 
Messenger," " Putnam's Monthly," the " Atlantic Monthly," and other periodicals, 
in the pages of which the essays, lesthetic, biographical, and critical, which form 
the bulk of his works, were originally published. His next work in the order of 
publication was " Sicily, a Pilgrimage " (1838), in which the author's experience is 
described under thf^uise of fiction. It was followed by " Rambles and Reveries " 
(1841) ; " Thoughts on the Poets " (1846), devoted chiefly to masters of the English 
school (translated into German by Midler) ; " Artist Life, or 'Sketches of American 
Painters" (1847); " Characteristics of Literature " (1849), of which a second series 
appeared in 1851 ; "TheOpimist" (1850), a collection of miscellaneous essays; a 
"Life of Commodore Silas Talbot" (1851); " A Month in England " (1853), the 
fruits of a brief visit to Europe in 1852 ; " Memorial of Horatio Greenough " (1853) ; 
" Biographical Essays " (1857). In 1851 a collection of his poems, embracing an 
elaborate metrical essay entitled " The Spirit of Poetry," was published in Boston. 
Among his incidental writings may be mentioned a compreheusive "Sketch of 
American Literature," appended to Shaw's " Outlines of English Literature." 

On the principle that art and literature go hand in hand, Mr. Tuckermau has 
established his library and writing-desk in the Studio Buildings. 







,Z7 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



017 166 272 2 # 



Hollinger Corp. 
pH 8.5 



